A domain is your website’s address on the internet, for example threewaves.agency. Strictly speaking, you don’t buy a domain outright. You register it for a set period (usually a year), with the right to renew. Your domain carries your business email as well as your website, which makes it one of the foundations of your brand online.
How do you choose a good domain name?
Keep it short and simple, with no hyphens or numbers, and easy to spell out over the phone. A business operating in Poland would naturally pick .pl; industry extensions (like our .agency) work when they suit the brand. Before you register, check that the name doesn’t clash with an existing brand and that social media profiles with the same name are still free: a consistent name across every channel is part of your identity, and customers really do notice it.
The most important security rule
The domain should be registered to you or your company. An agency or ‘the IT guy who did the website’ should never be the registered owner. Businesses regularly come to us wanting to change web designer after years, only to find that their address belongs to someone else. When we build websites, we register domains in the client’s name and hand over the logins: it’s your address and your property, whoever works on the site. Keep an eye on renewals too, because an expired domain can end up at auction.
Related terms: web hosting, SSL certificate.
