How do you choose a domain name?

The domain name a website is built on serves as its address and business card. You wouldn't buy a watch on a website at the domain hats.co.il, right? The domain name tells potential customers what they can find on the website.

A short, simple and memorable domain name will serve the website well by helping spread its address and making it memorable to new audiences, and it even helps the website's organic ranking in various search engines. Therefore, don't try to be too clever, use hard-to-understand wordplay, or use words that are difficult for your target audience to spell.

Which extension should you choose for your domain?

After deciding on a domain name that represents the brand or purpose of the website, a name that is as catchy and memorable as possible, you need to buy the domain.

You can search for an available domain to buy using the search box at the top of this page. You can search for and buy domain names under more than 90 extensions, including an Israeli domain under the co.il extension.

Extensions can be divided into several types:

1. 1. Generic extensions: generic extensions are not associated with any one specific country, but rather with the subject of the website or the entity that holds the rights to the website. The most popular generic extension is of course .com, the most common extension on the internet overall. That said, .net, .org, .info, .biz and other generic extensions are also very common on the internet.
2. 2. Geographic extensions: extensions associated with countries, with differences in registration procedures from extension to extension or country to country. The most common geographic extension in Israel is of course .co.il, suitable for any website whose customers are Israeli or who read Hebrew in general.
3. 3. Domain names in languages other than English (IDN): domain names in non-English languages are a field that is gaining momentum worldwide. You can already buy a domain entirely in Hebrew, or buy a Hebrew domain with an English extension.

Domain name extensions often reflect the purpose of the website. A website aimed at an Israeli audience will usually use .il extensions (.co.il in most cases), while the owner of an international website will prefer generic extensions such as .com, the most popular extension on the internet. It is often necessary to register your domain under several extensions to cover different audiences and different purposes of the website, and also to prevent harm to and misuse of your brand by parties unrelated to you or your organization. If the domain name you chose is not available for registration under your preferred extension, you can register it under other extensions, or even approach the domain's rights holders and try to buy the domain from them.

The registration procedures and cost of buying a domain depend on the domain extension and on the decision of the registry responsible for the extension. For most extensions, the entire domain registration process can be completed on the DNS Cloud website. Such a registration process takes only a few minutes, after which you will need to check which hosting package is best suited to host your website.

Now all that's left is to find the domain that suits you best.