When creating a website, one quickly realizes that it requires going through multiple steps. One of the essential steps is the acquisition of a domain name. It is therefore essential to know the different costs that it represents. It is also necessary to understand how an appropriate choice can be decisive to gain visibility and thus expanding its readership or clientele. You don’t actually buy a domain name, you rent it to what you call a Registrar. These companies offer different levels of services at extremely variable prices. It is therefore important to identify our different needs as well as those of our potential customers or employers to choose a suitable domain name. So we’re going to have to know what we’re talking about…
What is a domain name?
A domain name is an address, that of your website. You can imagine your website as a house and the associated domain name as its postal address. When you search the Internet and click on a link, an address appears in the URL bar at the top of the screen. Let’s take a random example, https://lowcostwebagency.com/ . HTTPS means that your data is secure, lowcostwebagency.com is the domain name and is divided into two parts: lowcostwebagency is the SLD (second-level domain), and .com is a part of the address called extension or TLD (top-level domain). We also sometimes see “www. ” which means World Wide Web.
When you register a domain name with a Registrar (Gandi.net for example), it assigns you an extension that varies according to the type of website you want to create (blog, e-commerce, etc.) and different restrictions. For example, it will not be able to assign you a domain name reserved for the inhabitants of another country. Now that we know precisely what it is, we will have to acquire it.
How do I buy a domain name?
As said before, you never buy a domain name forever. You use a registrar (Gandi , Godaddy , NameCheap) who links you to an “IP address registry”. At Low Cost Web Agency, we work with registrar Gandi.net. It will offer you a subscription for the year. It can be worth purchasing several similar domain names to make sure your customers or readers don’t stumble upon a competing site by typing in the keywords that would lead to your website. Pay attention to the hidden costs behind some seemingly attractive offers (domain name transfer fees for example).
Also, beware of platforms like Wix that will assign you an internet address you will not own! For more information, we invite you to read the following article: Why Wix is not a good idea
What does the price of a domain name depend on?
There are two types of domain names. Let’s start by looking at the first one.
The first market refers to all available domain names. Their prices can be quite variable, from $1 to several thousand.
The price of an available domain name depends first of all on extension or TLD. A web address ending in .com will be more valuable than a name ending in .net or .org because the .com is the most popular TLD internationally. To give you an idea, the extension .com (which means commercial) represents approximately 50% of the world’s traffic! The other extensions come far behind! For example, the .org extension accounts for about 5% of traffic, and the .net extension accounts for 3%.
Of course, the choice of extension also depends on the use you want to make of your website. The .fr extension can give you some proximity to French users, the .info extension means that your website is for informational purposes, .org will be associated with non-profit organizations, etc. We invite you to learn about the most appropriate extension to use when creating a website.
Secondly, the price depends on the SLD. Ideally, it should be short, without spelling mistakes, and above all, it should be a searched keyword.
Prices may vary depending on how long you subscribe as well as the number of domain names you purchase. For example, you can get discounts if you buy the address exemple.com but also exemple.net, exemple.org, exemple.info, etc. You will pay about twenty euros per year on average for this kind of name. While doing your research, you may see the following message: “the domain name is already in use”. You can still buy it: it’s the second market.
The second market refers to the set of domain names that already have an owner.
Buying a domain name that is already in use can be more expensive because only one person will be able to sell it to you and many people will potentially want to buy it. The factors mentioned for the first market are also valid for the second market (SLD, TLD). It is also necessary to take into account the age of the domain name (the older it is, the more it will be known to Google and therefore better referenced and more expensive) or the traffic (number of clicks on the domain name). For example, the LasVegas.com site sold for 90 million euros in 2005. What for? Because its SLD is extremely sought after and concerns a very lucrative sector.
Buying a domain name that is already in use can have big advantages. However, you will have to find the owner, negotiate the price and then move on to the transfer of the domain name. This can be tedious!
You can use domain price estimators, many of which are available on the web. However, do not consider these estimates as gospel words! Many of the domain names used are sold at auction, so prices can vary drastically depending on the context. However, it is interesting to observe the price at which domain names similar to the one you want to buy have been sold to get an idea.
The important thing is to determine what type of web address fits your website and what your budget is.
Buy domain names… A job?
And yes! As with houses, buying/reselling domain names can pay off big. Called domain flipping, this practice consists of buying domain names at a very low price (between 1 and 10 €) and reselling them at prices sometimes 100 times higher. This is a risky practice because you can buy dozens of domain names without selling a single one.
Conclusion
As we have seen, buying domain names is a vast topic that deserves your full attention when you create a website. Here are the key points to remember:
- They are acquired from a registrar and are paid in the form of an annual subscription.
- Their purchase price is very variable according to their SLD, their TLD, and especially their availability, ranging from one euro to several thousand (see millions).
- An optimal and therefore expensive domain name will have a short TLD, well spelled, without special characters, an extension in .com, certain age, and consequent traffic.
When you create a website with Low Cost Web Agency, we help you choose your domain name as best as possible according to your needs and budget.
Choosing a domain name is only the first step in the design of a Website, then you will need to choose a web host as well as a content management system and many other things.
Low Cost Web Agency accompanies you and offers you services in every step of the creation of your website, in collaboration with certified partners and at unbeatable prices.
