Domains 101: how to choose, buy, connect and protect a domain name

What a domain name is

A domain name is your address on the web, like yourbusiness.com. Customers type it, Google lists it and your email runs on it. Computers find each other by number, and the domain is the friendly name that points to those numbers.

You never own a domain outright. You rent it by the year from a company called a registrar, and it stays yours as long as you renew. A domain is also separate from hosting, the server that holds your site. Our domain vs hosting guide explains how the two fit together and compares .com prices registrar by registrar.

This page is the beginner’s path, start to finish. Each step is short and points to a deeper guide when you need more.

Step 1: Pick a name people can remember

The best domain is one a customer can hear once and type correctly. A few practical rules:

• Short and easy to say. Say it out loud as if you were on the phone. If you have to spell it, simplify it.
• No hyphens or numbers. People forget whether it was “4” or “four”, and whether there was a dash.
• Close to your business name. If the exact name is taken, add a plain word like your city or trade (smithroofingdenver.com) instead of an odd spelling.
• Read it run together. Words that look fine with spaces can read badly without them. Check before you pay.
• Check trademarks before you buy. See below.

Search the name in the USPTO’s free Trademark Search tool, which replaced the old TESS database. The USPTO also tells people to check state records and the wider internet, because a trademark does not need to be federally registered to cause a “likelihood of confusion.” Buying a domain does not make the name your trademark, either.

Skip names that copy someone else’s brand. The brand owner can file a UDRP complaint, ICANN’s domain dispute process, and if they show you registered and used the name in bad faith, the domain can be canceled or handed to them. This is general information, not legal advice.

Step 2: Pick the ending

For a US business, start with .com. It is the ending people type by habit, and by far the biggest: Verisign counted 166.6 million .com registrations at the end of the second quarter of 2026. If the .com you want is taken, a small change to the name usually beats a different ending.

Other endings make sense in a few cases:

• .us is for US people and organizations only. You must be a US citizen, permanent resident or someone living in the US, a US-organized entity, or a foreign entity with a real US presence. Privacy services are not allowed on .us, so your contact details are public.
• .co is Colombia’s country ending, sold to anyone worldwide. It is one letter from .com, so some people will type the wrong one.
• .io belongs to the British Indian Ocean Territory, and its registry says anyone, anywhere can register. No official statement has been published on its future after the Chagos sovereignty agreement.
• .ai must be registered and renewed for at least 2 years at a time, so you always pay for two years up front.
• .app and .dev force secure HTTPS connections on every site. Most builders handle that for you, but the site must have an SSL certificate to load at all.

The bigger difference is cost. Here is what a few endings cost to renew each year:

An .io costs about four to five times as much as a .com at the same registrar, every year. Our domain extensions guide covers more endings and who each one suits.

Step 3: Buy it, and look at the renewal price

Where to buy

You buy a domain from a domain registrar. Well-known ones include Namecheap, Spaceship, Porkbun, Cloudflare and GoDaddy. Compare them on three things: the renewal price, free privacy and account security. Our best domain registrars guide does that side by side.

The renewal-price trap

Registrars advertise the first year. You pay the renewal price every year after that, for as long as you keep the name, so that is the number to compare.

• Namecheap: a .com is $11.28 for the first year on sale, then $18.48 a year to renew.
• GoDaddy: a .com is $0.01 for the first year, but only with a required 3-year purchase. The other two years are $22.99 each, so the three years cost $45.99.
• Porkbun: a .com is $11.08 to register and the same $11.08 to renew, or $33.24 over three years.

Watch for a small extra line at checkout too. ICANN charges $0.20 a year per domain, and some registrars, including Namecheap and Spaceship, add it on top of the listed price for some endings.

Privacy should be free

WHOIS privacy hides your name, address and phone number from the public domain records. Namecheap, Spaceship, Porkbun, Cloudflare, GoDaddy and Squarespace Domains all include it free, so do not pay for it there. Wix is an exception: private registration is a paid add-on, and .us does not allow privacy at all.

Registrar or your website builder?

Squarespace, Wix and GoDaddy include a free domain for the first year with annual plans. It sounds like a good deal, but read the catch:

• It is free for one year only. Squarespace says common endings like .com and .org are then $20 a year.
• It comes with conditions. Squarespace’s offer is for annual plans, not monthly ones. Wix’s voucher has to be claimed within two months of buying the plan.
• It ties the domain to the builder. If you leave, you also have to move the domain. Squarespace says the free status does not carry over, and GoDaddy says domains bought as part of a bundle can’t be transferred within 120 days of registration.

Our advice: register the domain yourself at a registrar, in your own name and account, and connect it to your builder. Then switching builders later means changing a couple of records, not moving the domain.

.com prices go up November 1, 2026

Verisign, the company that runs .com, is raising its wholesale fee from $10.26 to $10.97 a year on November 1, 2026, about 7%. Registrars usually pass this on. Porkbun, for example, says its .com price will rise to approximately $11.81 that day.

If you are buying or renewing a .com this month, check if your registrar lets you pay for several years at today’s price. Look at the checkout total, since the multi-year price can differ from the one-year price.

Step 4: Connect it to your website

Your domain has to point at the place your website lives. That happens through DNS, the internet’s address book, which turns a name into a server address and tells email where to go. There are two ways to set it up:

• Change the nameservers. Nameservers decide which company runs all of your domain’s DNS. Pointing them at your builder hands over everything, website and email records included.
• Add records. You keep DNS at your registrar and add the one or two records your builder gives you, usually an A record for yourbusiness.com and a CNAME record for www. Everything else stays where it is.

For most small sites, adding records is the safer choice because your email settings never move. Changes can take a few minutes or up to a day or two to show up everywhere. The step-by-step version is in our domain and hosting guide.

One exception: Cloudflare Registrar requires Cloudflare’s own nameservers on every domain it registers, so there DNS always runs at Cloudflare.

Step 5: Set up email at your domain

A domain also gives you an address like you@yourbusiness.com. You have two options:

• Forwarding (free). Mail sent to your domain address lands in the inbox you already use. Namecheap includes up to 100 forwarding addresses when the domain uses its DNS. Porkbun, Cloudflare Email Routing and Shopify-managed domains include free forwarding too. Forwarding only receives mail; you can’t send as that address with it alone.
• A real mailbox (paid). To send and receive as you@yourbusiness.com, you need email hosting. Google Workspace Business Starter is $7.00 per user a month billed yearly ($8.40 on the flexible monthly plan). Microsoft 365 Business Basic is $7.00 per user a month billed yearly ($8.40 billed monthly).

Email is controlled by MX records in your DNS. When you change website records later, leave the MX records alone.

Step 6: Protect it

Losing a domain is worse than losing a website. Your site, your email and your search rankings all depend on it. Most losses come from two things: a missed renewal and a break-in on the registrar account.

The settings to turn on today

1. Auto-renew, with a card on file. Use a card that won’t expire before the next renewal, and update it when you get a new one.
2. Two-factor authentication (2FA). A second step at login, such as a code from an app. Namecheap, Spaceship, Porkbun, Cloudflare and GoDaddy all offer it, and Spaceship also supports passkeys.
3. Registrar lock. Often called domain lock or transfer lock. It tells the registry to reject transfer requests. Leave it on unless you are moving the domain.
4. A contact email on a different domain. If your only contact address is you@yourbusiness.com and that domain lapses, the renewal notices go to an inbox that has stopped working. ICANN’s security committee recommends contact emails on a different domain from the one being protected (report SAC044), and Verisign’s anti-hijacking advice stresses locks, 2FA and strong passwords.
5. Registry lock for high-value names. Verisign Registry Lock, for .com and .net, adds locks at the registry itself. Removing it takes a phone verification with a security phrase. It is sold only through participating registrars and suits a name your business can’t do without.
6. Your name, your account. The domain should sit in an account you control, not your web designer’s.

What happens if a domain expires

ICANN’s Expired Registration Recovery Policy sets the minimum timeline for .com and other generic endings. Your registrar’s exact days can differ.

Redemption is expensive. Namecheap lists $88.48 to restore a .com, which includes the renewal. Registrars can also move faster than the minimums: GoDaddy’s timeline parks your site and email about 5 days after expiry, adds a redemption fee from about day 18 and can put the name in its expired-domain auction from day 26.

Step 7: Move it later if you want

You are never stuck with a registrar. You can transfer a domain to another one, and many registrars, including Namecheap, GoDaddy and Cloudflare, add a year to your expiry date when you do. The basics:

• Wait out the 60-day lock. A registrar may refuse a transfer within 60 days of registration or of a previous transfer. Changing the owner’s name, organization or email can start a new 60-day lock, unless you opt out first where your registrar allows it.
• Turn off the registrar lock and get the auth code. This is the transfer password, also called an EPP code. Your registrar must give it to you within 5 calendar days.
• Start the transfer at the new registrar and pay for the added year.

An ICANN reform has been proposed that would replace the 60-day locks with a 30-day lock, but no start date has been published. The full walk-through is in how to transfer a domain.

The domain is the one part of a website you can always take with you. In our exit scores, 16 of the 17 platforms get full marks for the domain, even ones where the design stays behind. Square Online is the exception, because its docs don’t confirm domain transfer.

Step 8: Sell it if the time comes

Domains can be sold on their own through domain marketplaces such as Sedo and Afternic, which take a commission. If you sell a whole website, the domain goes with it, so keep it in an account you can hand over cleanly. Fees and the main marketplaces are in our guide to buying and selling websites.

Your domain checklist

1. Pick a short name with no hyphens or numbers that is easy to say.
2. Search it in USPTO Trademark Search and on the web.
3. Choose .com unless you have a clear reason not to.
4. Compare renewal prices, not first-year prices.
5. Register it at a registrar, in your own name and account.
6. Confirm WHOIS privacy is on and free.
7. Turn on auto-renew and check the card on file.
8. Turn on 2FA and the registrar lock.
9. Set the contact email to an address on a different domain.
10. Connect it to your site with records, and leave the MX records alone.
11. Set up email forwarding or a mailbox.
12. Write the renewal date in your calendar anyway.

What to do next

• Not sure where to buy? Start with the best domain registrars.
• Still choosing between .com and something else? Read domain extensions explained.
• Already have a domain at a builder? See how to transfer a domain.
• Budgeting the whole site? Our domain vs hosting guide has the full .com price table and the hosting side.