international domains

A domain name is your website's address on the internet where people can access your website. A domain name refers to the URL people type in a web browser's address bar to access your site.

For example, the domain name of our website is hostafrica.co.za.

Generally, domain names are comprised of two main parts. The first part is your brand name which can have any combination of letters and numbers, like HostAfrica, whereas the second part is a domain extension like .com, .org, .net, .com.uk, etc.

Each domain is a unique web address. This means that there can be only one hostafrica.co.za in the world.

You only need to register once for your domain, although you will need to renew your domain name every year for a fee. This is to ensure the domain is being used, and the name isn’t being wasted. You can only renew your domain name once a year.

There are a limited number of domains available, and once a domain has been registered, no one else can use that domain name to identify their website. Once you have registered your domain name, you can change your website provider without worrying about having to change your website or email addresses.

The most popular domains on the internet include .com, .net and .org. However, there are millions of domains already registered on these, making it more difficult to secure the right one for you. It’s a popular practise around the world to use the Internet Country Code of the country you reside in as your domain, such as .co.za, as this helps people recognise the region you operate in.

However, there are hundreds of domains available based on what your website is about and many of these are cheaper than the alternatives with plenty of domains available to register. HOSTAFRICA offers hundreds of domains to choose from, and we encourage you to browse through them to find the perfect domain for you.

There are billions of websites around today, so don’t be alarmed if the domain name you wanted is already taken. The best method around this is to choose a different domain extension. Google will not penalise you in search results based on your extension, so your online performance will not suffer. You can benefit from a more specific and easier to remember domain for your business, website, or interest. For example, .lawyer can give a law firm credibility in their website name.