Photo by Federica Galli on Unsplash

For many people, the internet is a mystery. Sure, we have our favorite apps and websites, but we rely on the magic of our browser to take us from one site to another, rarely thinking about the infrastructure behind the screen.

And if you do? You’re probably imagining a Matrix-like world of ones and zeros.

As a business founder, you want to stick to what you do best. Whether that’s baking the best darn cupcakes on the Lower East Side, offering a streamlined email marketing service, or providing expertise as a mechanic, you shouldn’t have to do a degree in computer science to get started.

But when you’re building a business and a brand, there soon comes a point at which it’s essential to have a website. And to have a website you need a domain. That’s why you’ll likely find yourself asking “What is domain registration?” before too long.

Knowing how to choose a domain for your business is essential. Your domain is a pillar of your brand, and the place customers visit your business online. Having a weak domain is like hiding your brick-and-mortar store in a back alley: your customers can’t find you, they’ll forget where you are, and they’ll use your competitors instead.

So to give your business the best start in life, you need a strong domain name. And to own a domain, you need to register it. Let’s dive into the world of domains and domain registrars, and turn those ones and zeros into a complete picture.

What is a Domain?

A domain name is a unique online address that leads to a website and provides the platform for every business with an online identity. Domains consist of two parts: a brandable section (like ‘Atom’), and an extension or TLD such as .com, or .org. Our domain is Atom.com.

Each domain is paired with an IP address that looks like a string of numbers: 192.147.1.21. IP addresses are what computers use to navigate the internet, but domain names are (much!) easier for humans to remember.

In today’s world, every business requires an online presence. Your domain name is an important piece of virtual real estate, no less significant than a brick-and-mortar store where customers can visit, browse, and buy your products.

And for businesses without a physical store, it’s the only place your customers can learn about your products and services.

Your domain name should be memorable, easy to spell and find online, and ensure your customers that you’re a reputable business by looking trustworthy. That means the choice of domain name and extension are hugely important.

A strong domain name brings a range of benefits to your business:

• Easily discoverable online, ensuring your customers can find you.
• Enhances your brand by connecting to your customers’ values and experiences.
• Shows your professionalism and strengthens customers’ trust in your business.

Meanwhile, a bad domain name will hurt your business:

• Customers can’t find your website or remember the name.
• Customers won’t trust your website with their credit card details.
• Competitors can easily imitate you by purchasing the .com version of your domain.

When you buy your domain name, you don’t “own” it forever. The act of purchasing a domain requires that you register it and reserve it for your own use, usually for a year. At the end of that year, you have to renew your registration to continue using that domain.

This renewal isn’t expensive, usually between $10-$30. Renewal is more of a formality to make sure you’re actively using or planning to use the domain (whether as part of a portfolio for resale or as a home for your business) than a “rent” payment.

Anyone looking to buy a domain and build a strong, brandable online identity must understand the domain registration process. So let’s dive into this up-to-date beginner’s guide to domain registration.

What is Domain Registration?

Domain name registration is the reservation of your chosen domain name and usually, registration lasts for one year before renewal is required. Domain name registration takes place on a domain name registrar, which provides domain name registration services on behalf of the domain name registry.

It sounds confusing, but don’t be put off. First of all, owning a domain name is similar to leasing any other piece of property, like a home, car, or physical store for your business. Think of domain registration as signing the lease, allowing you to use the property as you wish for as long as the lease is in place. As noted above, the main difference is that renewing the “lease” on your domain is usually inexpensive, and there are no restrictions on how you can use the domain whilst it’s yours. 

So, once the lease is up, you sign another one to continue using your property. Renewing your registration, usually necessary yearly, is the digital parallel of renewing your lease.

Domain registration has been made easy by domain registrars such as GoDaddy.com and NameCheap. These registrars handle everything technical about the domain registration process.

Getting down to the nitty-gritty: domain registrars act as intermediaries between you and the registry operators who own your domain name, and ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) an organization responsible for the coordination of the whole DNS — the domain name system. But that’s pretty complicated, and not something you need to think about as a business owner buying a domain! A good domain name registrar simplifies the registration process so you don’t need to be tech-savvy to register a great domain name.

What is a domain name registrar?

A domain name registrar is a service accredited by domain name registries and ICANN to take domain name orders from customers and provide registration services. Popular domain registrars include:

• GoDaddy
• NameCheap
• Squarespace
• PorkBun
• …and many more.

As a domain owner, the registrar is the only service you need to deal with when managing your domain name registration. Your domain registrar will ‘lease’ you your domain name and assign it an IP address (the string of numbers that computers use to identify your domain).

As a customer, you can choose which domain name registrar to use. There are many options online, all offering slightly different services and pricing structures.

And even though you (the registrant) only deal with the registrar, the whole domain name infrastructure is a little more complicated. It looks like this:

• Registrant: that’s you! The registrant is the individual or business that registers and owns a domain name.

• Registrars: services like GoDaddy.com that provide domain registration services. Registrars communicate domain registration to the registries.

• Registry operators: Registries are the record holders of domain registration and run domain name infrastructure. For example, Verisign is the authoritative registry for the .com extension.

• ICANN: ICANN stands for Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers and it’s a non-profit organization that coordinates the Domain Name System.

A Beginner’s Guide to Domain Registration

If you’re still asking “how does domain registration work?” then here’s your answer. We’ll walk you through the domain registration process so you understand every step.

Domain Registration Steps

Here’s your step-by-step guide to registering a domain.

1. Choose your domain name.

The first thing you need to do is find the domain you want to register. That means you need to know how to choose the perfect domain name for your venture.

Domain names should be easy to find and remember for your customers, so shorter names that are easy to spell are best. Domains around 13 – 14 characters long are popular, but given that the average length among the top 10,000 most popular sites is 8 characters it’s clear that size does matter.

Premium domain names are usually under 12 characters, and any misspellings must follow popular conventions, such as replacing an i with a y exemplified by ride-hailing service Lyft. Replacing an f with ph is not a popular misspelling, so a wellness brand called “PhindYourself.com” is likely to confuse your customers!

You also need a proven, trustworthy extension: .com is the gold standard but .org, .io, and a small selection of others, are popular in certain industries. ccTLDs, or country-specific extensions like .co.uk and .de are used in local markets, but they can limit your business’s growth potential.

2. Checking domain availability.

Once you have some domain name ideas in mind, you need to check what’s available to buy. Domain names are either open and available or already registered/

To find out if your domain is available, you can search it on a domain registrar to see if you can register it.

Domains that are already registered are owned by someone else but you may be able to buy that domain if it’s for sale.  All the websites you visit are already owned by the businesses that operate them, so you can’t register eBay.com or Atom.com!

There’s a strong chance that your chosen domain is already owned: there are over 628.5 million domains registered already, including most of the best ones. All three and four-letter domains with the .com extension are already owned.

While alternative extensions (.pizza, anyone?) are an option, these are looked down upon by customers and can damage your credibility.

So if you want a really strong, brandable domain name, then reputable marketplaces like Atom.com are a must. Atom provides a curated list of affordable and high-value domains.

Buying your domain from a reputable marketplace ensures you get a great asset for your business: a name that fits with customer expectations and combines with an extension that proves your reliability and professionalism.

3. Choosing a domain registrar

Once you own your domain, you can choose the domain registrar at which to register your domain. Not all domain registrars can register any domain name: some are only accredited to register domains with specific country-code extensions, like .io, .nl, or .in.

Domain registrars will also offer different pricing structures, registration time frames, and other services. Domain registration costs on average $10 – $60 a year, and many registrars have introductory offers and will provide initial registration for as low as $1.

Some registrars may require you to register your domain for a minimum of two years, while others may allow you to register your domain for up to ten years so you don’t have to worry about annual domain renewal.

And there are other services and benefits that domain registrars can offer. Here are some of the things to consider when choosing a domain registrar:

• Cost, both of initial registration and for renewal.
• Timeframe of registration.
• Privacy protection.
• SSL certificates to enable the use of the more secure HTTPS.
• Additional web hosting and WordPress services.

4. Completing the registration process 

When you’ve made your decision, you can register your domain on the website of your chosen registrar. Don’t forget to add the additional services you require, and double-check how much you’ll be charged for future renewal.

Congratulations! You’ve registered your domain and can start building a website to wow your customers. The future’s bright for your brand.

How long does domain registration take?

Most new domain registrations will appear in your account on the same day, but the exact duration will depend on the TLD (top-level domain) and the registry in charge of that TLD. It can take up to three days for your website to appear on the internet worldwide — this is called DNS propagation.

When moving a registered domain to another domain registrar, the domain transfer can take between 5 and 7 days.

Common mistakes to avoid in domain registration

Domain registration is a simple and affordable step that gives you ownership over your chosen domain, but with a wide range of providers to choose from, all offering different services, it’s possible to pick an option that doesn’t match your needs. When asking “what is domain registration,” you also need to know which mistakes to avoid when registering your domain.

• Add-on pricing or hidden fees: Opting for cheaper domain registration may save you money in the short term, but the overall cost of registration should be carefully assessed. Add-on pricing will require further fees for extras such as privacy protection or SSL certificates, whereas other domain registrars will include these services as standard.

Hidden fees can appear in the form of second and third-year registration costs. Many registrars offer introductory offers with big discounts for initial registration and higher costs down the line.

• Getting poor customer service: Choosing a domain registrar with a poor customer service record means that if something goes wrong with your domain there’s less support. This could mean your website is temporarily down, costing you business.

Most business owners aren’t tech-savvy and rely on domain registrars to make the technical side of domain registration simple. Add-ons like privacy, SSL certification, and web hosting should be made easy to understand and a well-built user interface should facilitate domain transfer and changing your domain settings.

• Disregarding privacy: Most domain registrars offer a service to protect your personal information when you register a domain name. Without this, you may be individually discoverable as the owner of that domain. Don’t forget to consider the private protection options when registering a domain.

• Weak security infrastructure: A domain registrar should have robust security infrastructure to protect against domain hijacking. Using a third or even fourth-party or outsourced domain registration will weaken your security and could put your domain at risk.

• Going with a reseller rather than a registrar: Resellers are third-party organizations that offer domain registration on behalf of a registrar. Registering your domain through a reseller often means a higher fee and threadbare customer service.

Most resellers don’t advertise that they are not a registrar themselves, so it can be hard to tell. If in doubt, you can check the ICANN List of Accredited Registrars to see if the service is an authorized registrar or a reseller.

What is Domain Privacy?

When you register a domain, the domain registrar is required to provide personal information about the owner of that domain to ICANN, the non-profit organizational body for domain name systems. This information is held in the WHOIS public database.

It’s like appearing in the phone book: anyone who wants to know who owns a particular domain can look you up. The information that goes into WHOIS includes:

• Your first name and last name
• Address
• Email
• Phone number

At best, this means your address and phone number can be found by marketers and salespeople, leading to a lot of unsolicited phone calls and spam. At worst, it puts you at risk of having your identity stolen and your website compromised.

To have domain privacy, you need to use a privacy service to replace your real personal information with secondary information that protects your privacy while meeting the legal requirements of ICANN and local governing bodies.

Usually, domain privacy services will use proxy information in place of your personal information. This information can still be used to contact you about your domain but means that your identity and personal contact information are protected from the wrong people.

What is Domain Transfer?

As we’ve said, you can’t just go about registering any domain. Try buying Google.com, and see what happens!

With over 600 million domains already registered, quite a few of the best ones have been taken and that might include the best names for your business.

So if you’re looking for a powerful and memorable domain name accompanied by a proven extension, then you should explore premium domain marketplaces to find the best name, and domain, to showcase your business online.

But that means you’re buying a domain from someone else — the domain is already owned, and already registered. So what is domain transfer? It’s the process of transferring a domain from one owner to another and getting your new domain registered as an asset of your business.

Domain transfer from a private owner.

If you’re purchasing directly from the seller, then they will use their current registrar to initiate the transfer.

It’s easier to transfer ownership of a domain when registration stays with the same registrar. So for example, if you bought a domain that’s registered at GoDaddy, you can create your own GoDaddy account and have the domain transferred to that account. This should be completed within 24 hours and you’ll always have the choice to transfer the domain to a different registrar in the future.

Domain transfer from a domain marketplace

When purchasing a domain through Atom’s marketplace, domain transfer experts will manage the transfer to ensure a secure and streamlined purchase. If you’re keeping the domain with the same registrar, it will be pushed to your account on the same day.

If you’re moving it to a new registrar, Atom will provide an EPP code to authorize the transfer. Provide this code to your new registrar and the transfer will be underway.

Using a reputable domain marketplace gives you peace of mind throughout the purchasing process. As well as knowing you’re buying a high-value domain, you get security and support at every step.

Renewing and Managing Your Domain

Because domain ownership is more like leasing a property than owning it forever, it’s essential to renew the registration of your domain.

To renew your domain names, go to your account with your chosen domain registrar. If you can’t remember which domain registrar you chose, you can use the WHOIS database to find the authorized registrar for any domain.

You can renew your domain name at any time before the registration expires, and some registrars will allow you to extend the registration for up to ten years.

What happens if my domain expires?

I can’t count the number of times I’ve forgotten to cancel my Spotify subscription, and I end up paying for a month I’m not using.

It’s easy to lose track, but unlike Spotify, forgetting to renew your domain name could cost a little more than $13.99. When your domain expires, you no longer own it. Somebody else could purchase the domain.

You may lose your website and access to any email addresses using that domain. The business, and the brand you’ve built, would crumble.

Fortunately, most registrars offer a grace period when a domain expires. For example, GoDaddy gives you 26 days before the name goes to auction.

During the grace period, most registrars will attempt to auto-renew your domain and send multiple emails reminding you that your domain has expired.

So to avoid losing your domain, turn on auto-renew and remember to check when your domain is due to expire!

Conclusion

Whatever your business, you can’t be expected to understand the whole internet infrastructure before you launch your brand, but having a strong website is a vital part of building a powerful brand. And to have a website, you need to deal with domain registrars. 

Fortunately, domain registration is simple, so you can stick to what you do best and build your business. A good domain registrar will enable you to register your domain, add on security, hosting, and privacy services, and get your business off the ground.

But choosing a reputable registrar is essential, as is choosing a powerful domain name that will connect with your customers. The Atom Premium marketplace has thousands of expertly curated premium domain names listed for sale to give your business a powerful online platform.

When you purchase a domain name from Atom, you can transfer it to the registrar of your choosing; our domain transfer specialists make the whole process easy. So why not buy and register your new domain today?

Frequently Asked Questions

If you’re new to the world of domain registration, you’ll likely have a few questions. Here’s everything you need to know.

What does it mean to ‘own’ a domain name?

Owning a domain name is a little like leasing a piece of property, such as a car, than owning it outright. When you own a domain name, you register it for a time (usually between one and ten years) and, to continue using it after that time period, you must renew your registration. Registration is affordable (usually under $30 per year at a maximum). As long as a domain remains registered by you, you are effectively its owner and are free to use it as you please (within the bounds of the law).

What is the difference between a registrar and a registry?

A domain registrar is an administrative service that offers domain registration to the general public, and a domain registry manages the records of domains and runs the infrastructure. The registrar acts as a middleman between customers and the domain registry. Examples of registrars are GoDaddy, NameCheap, and Hostinger, while registries include VeriSign (which manages .com) and the Public Interest Registry (which manages .org).

How much does domain registration cost?

Domain registration can be as cheap as $1 for introductory offers, but the average cost is between $10 and $20. ICANN charges registrars a mandatory annual fee of $0.18, which most registrars include in their prices.

How long can I register a domain name for?

Most domain registrars offer a one-year registration as standard, but it’s possible to register a domain for as long as ten years.

Are registrars the only ones who can sell domain name registrations?

No, ICANN-accredited registrars can authorize resellers to sell domain name registrations on their behalf. This means that third- and fourth-party resellers as well as registrars can sell domain name registrations. Resellers are to be avoided as they can lead to delays in DNS updates and weaken your security.

How do domain name registrars protect user privacy?

Domain registrar privacy services protect user privacy by redacting personal information and adding a proxy email address to the WHOIS database. 

Are renewal/registration costs for premium domains different compared to regular domains?

Usually, the value of a domain has no bearing on the cost of registration or renewal, so premium domains will not be more expensive than regular domains. However, some domain registrars will charge more for premium domains, so it’s best practice to compare fees before registration.

What is the Difference Between a URL and a Domain Name?

The URL is the complete set of information making up the address of a website, whereas a domain name is a user-friendly version of the IP address. A URL will include the protocol (like http:// or https://) as well as any further path (such as /en/blog). www.Atom.com is a domain, while https://www.Atom.com/premium-domains-for-sale/all is a URL.

What is the difference between a domain name and a website?

The domain name is simply the address of a website and a user-friendly version of the IP address that computers use to navigate the internet. A website includes all the web pages that contain information housed at that domain. Think of a domain as the plot of land with a street address: 123 Internet Avenue, and the website is the house and rooms built on that address.

What is HTTP and HTTPS?

HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol, and HTTPS stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure. These are two protocols for sending information over a network. HTTPS is HTTP with additional layers of security made up of encryption and verification, and to use HTTPS, websites requires an SSL certificate, often provided by domain registrars.