It is important to have domain names to help potential visitors find your site. Without assigned website names, we would only be able to access them by entering their IP address.

With keywords and brand names in domains, it is much easier for people to look up websites and find what they are looking for online.

Choosing and buying the best option isn't just about finding an available domain. There are some standard best practices to keep in mind before you look up a domain name and register it.

Length. Keep it short. Two to three words is ideal.

Simple. Don’t use any lengthy or hard-to-spell words.

Keywords. Include a keyword from your niche. For example, if you sell coffee beans in Seattle, try Seattlecoffeebeans.com.

Avoid numbers. Numbers are hard to remember and make everything more complex.

Brand name. Register a domain with your brand name in it for maximum recognition.

No, once you register a new domain you cannot change it. However, you can purchase a new domain name and move your website there.

The minimum registration period for domain names is one year. With Webio, you can also register .com, .net, .org, and other domains for up to three years if you know you’ve found the right domain name.

If you want to remain the current owner of your domain and make sure that it is always registered to you and your website, we recommend setting up automatic renewal.

No. The www in front of a URL is not a part of your domain – it's a subdomain.

If you do add www in front of your registered domain name, the final website address will look something like this: www.wwwexample.com. For that reason, you should only enter the exact words you want to appear in the domain.

Using the website domain checker is as easy as typing your perfect domain name into the search bar at the top of the page to find out if it's available.

From there, you can follow the steps to purchase that domain, get it registered, and even get a hosting plan to go with it.

At Webio, there are no special requirements for domain registration. We only require basic contact information and a valid payment method.

You don’t even have to be an existing customer of ours if you want to use Webio’s domain checker and buy a domain. You register your domain with us but point it to another hosting provider.

Of course. When you register a domain, it belongs to you – and not the company that you registered it with.

It is easy to use our domain transfer service to switch to Webio. We will walk you through every step of the process.

TLD stands for top-level domain. It is the final part of any domain like .com, .org, or .gov.

ccTLD stands for country-code top-level domain. It is a subcategory of TLDs used to identify a particular country – for example, .co.uk, .de, .mx, and .fr are all ccTLDs.

gTLD stands for generic top-level domain. gTLDs are the most common type of domain name, in part because this category includes .com domains, which have more registrations than all ccTLDs combined.

Historically, the main gTLDs were .com, .org, .net, .edu, .gov, and .mil, but the number of available gTLDs has been expanded with the addition of TLDs like .online, .xyz, and .name.

Webio offers instant domain registration and activation, so you can be sure that your new domain will be ready to use straight away.

We’ve made the process as quick as possible – it only takes a couple of minutes to go from checking domain name availability to successfully registering a domain.

It is easy to get a free domain with Webio. In fact, most Webio users are eligible – all you have to do is subscribe for a Professional or Enterprise plan for 12 months or more.

Learn how to claim your free domain.

If you check domain availability and the name has already been registered, you can try another extension. Often, the most popular extensions are already taken, but country-specific extensions such as .co.uk, or less common ones like .xyz or .online might still be available.

Privacy protection is sometimes called WHOIS protection because it hides certain information about a domain name's owner that would otherwise be discoverable through a WHOIS lookup.

Privacy protection lets you replace your name, address, phone number, email address, and business name with a set of generic, non-identifiable information.

Each gTLD carries a slightly different meaning, so it’s usually best to pick one that’s most relevant to your website.

Domain names ending in .com are commonly used for commercial purposes, although they’re becoming the default option as they imply a certain amount of trust. .net domains were originally used by networking companies, such as internet service providers, but are now multipurpose.

Domains ending in .org are still largely used as originally intended – as the gTLD for charities, communities, and local organizations. Meanwhile, .info is aimed at information-based websites such as wikis and tutorial sites.

With all of these gTLDs, there's a certain amount of wiggle room. There’s no rule saying you have to use one type of domain name or another. Think of the above information as guidelines.

Think of your domain name as your address and web hosting as the physical structure. If you want to launch a website, you'll need both a domain that people can use to find you and hosting to store the actual website.

While it’s technically possible to have one without the other, they work best together. This is why many hosting companies offer domain names and many registrars offer hosting services.