How to choose a domain name — and actually own it
Choose a domain that's short, spellable out loud, and close to your brand — then register it somewhere that shows the renewal price next to the first-year price, includes WHOIS privacy and SSL for free, and hands you the transfer (EPP) code the day you ask. Ownership is about the exit being easy, not the entrance.
A domain is the one part of your online business you can truly own — no platform, no algorithm, no landlord. But the industry has learned to make the first year cheap and the exit expensive. Choosing well means thinking about both halves: the name, and the terms you hold it on.
Choosing the name
- Say it out loud. If you have to spell it after saying it, keep looking.
- Shorter beats cleverer. Hyphens and numbers get mistyped and misremembered.
- The .com isn't sacred anymore — a clean name on .shop, .studio or your country's TLD beats a mangled name on .com.
- Check the name isn't someone else's trademark in your market before you print anything.
- If your brand name is taken, try the natural phrase a customer would search — what you do plus where you are.
The renewal-price trap
The most common surprise in domains is the second year. A $2.99 first year quietly renews at $25+, and by then your email, business cards and search ranking live on that name. Before you buy anywhere, find the renewal price — if it isn't shown next to the first-year price, that's your answer. At xigzag, registration and renewal are the same price on every TLD we sell, and the table is public.
What should be free (because it costs the registrar almost nothing)
- WHOIS privacy — your home address doesn't belong in a public database.
- SSL — the padlock is table stakes, not a product.
- DNS management, URL forwarding and basic email forwarding.
- Auto-renew you can turn off, with a warning before any charge.
You don't find out who owns your domain until you try to leave with it.
Real ownership is a working exit
ICANN rules give you the right to transfer a domain to any registrar: the current one must let you unlock it and hand you an authorization (EPP) code. A trustworthy registrar puts both behind one click — that's how it works in a xigzag dashboard, and it's the standard you should hold anyone to. The test of ownership isn't the buying experience. It's whether leaving is one click or one support ticket.
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