[With Recommendations] How to Get and Manage Domains Without Regret [Ease of Management]

From ACIDHOUSE, INC., this is Tetsuya Ashida.

I sometimes get questions like this from small business owners who are about to open a website.

I want to get a domain to open a website, but which registrar is best?

I looked into it a bit but couldn't really tell the difference, so I'd like to know what criteria to use.

This article answers that kind of question.

[With Recommendations] How to Choose a Web Server You Won't Regret [Stability, Price, Support] February 23, 2019

What is a domain, anyway?

A quick overview, just in case.

A domain makes an address on the internet easier to understand, and refers to things like "○○○.com," "○○○.co.jp," and "○○○.jp."

A site's actual address is defined by an IP address and expressed in a form like "123.456.789.012."

But that's hard to remember and use as it is, so domains solve that.

Points for choosing a domain registrar

Ease of use of the application and management screens

This is the most important point.

A domain can be used by "only one party in the whole world," so honestly it's the same whichever registrar you get it from.
So the key is the quality of the application and management screens the registrar provides.

Unlike a web server, you rarely access it, but getting and managing a domain is even more critical than a web server, so you want to choose one that is intuitive and easy to operate.

By the way, unlike with web servers, you will almost never need the registrar's support.

Track record and reputation

The number of contracts, the usability of the application and management screens, and the types of domains handled are the points to check.

Basically, the candidates are ones where you can find the checkpoints right away by googling.
Or it's fine to just choose from the recommended registrars described later.

Whether they have the domain you want

If you have no particular preference for the domain, I think the generally easy-to-remember ".com" or ".co.jp" is fine.".com" is probably the safe choice.

The types of domains have been increasing, with options such as ".me," ".love," and ".life."
They might be good for services that want to show some playfulness or feel a little different.
(By the way, this site also uses a ".love" domain, on a whim, lol.)

Things to watch out for before getting a domain

Let me explain each.

The domain name and domain type have nothing to do with Google's evaluation

I get asked, "Are there domains that are advantageous for SEO (aiming for top search rankings)?", but not really.

Note that the domain name must always be in English or romanized Japanese. You can sometimes get a "Japanese-language domain," but it's Galápagos-like and goes against today's advancing globalization.

If there is a domain name you want, check whether there are malicious services using it under other domain types

This is to prevent users from mistakenly ending up at the malicious service.

That said, few people type URLs directly, so I don't think you need to be that nervous, but if you run a business where "trustworthiness" is valued more than at other companies or in other industries, it's better to check.

Checking every domain type would be a lot of work, so if there are malicious-looking services on the major ones such as ".com," ".net," ".org," ".biz," ".co.jp," and ".jp," consider choosing a different domain name.

Don't consider buying an old domain

If you have worked on or studied SEO, you may have heard something like "domains that have existed for a long time are powerful and more likely to rank high."

And on that logic, old domains are sometimes sold at quite high prices, but I don't think you need to consider them.

That's because I have never heard of a website succeeding thanks to buying an old domain.

In the first place, if you unravel the future and mission Google wants to realize through the web, it tends to value "information providers who deliver value over the long term."

Presumably, "old domains are effective" came about as one element of that evaluation.

Then buying an old domain becomes an attempt to cheat your way, instantly, into being rated an "information provider who delivers value over the long term," which conflicts with Google's intentions.

That means that even if it has a temporary effect, there is no denying it could come to nothing when the algorithm changes.

What you absolutely want to avoid in domain management

Domains have an expiration date.

When it expires, your website becomes inaccessible and the email addresses on that domain become unusable (= they no longer exist), so be sure to renew within the expiration period.

However, this "expired domain" mistake seems to happen surprisingly often (a web production company I once worked with had done it too).

To avoid it, consider several of the following.

None of these is a perfect preventive measure.
But they should increase the likelihood of avoiding a fatal situation.