DOMAIN BASICS · 2026
What is a domain name? Your address on the internet
What a domain name is and how it differs from your website and your hosting, what the parts of one mean, how it works behind the scenes, what one costs, and how a small business gets one that's secure — in plain words, with the key figures sourced.
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The short answer
A domain name is the address people type to reach your website — yourbusiness.com. It isn't the website and it isn't the hosting: the domain is the address, the website is what's at the address, and hosting is the computer that keeps it online.
Think of a shop. The domain name is the street address customers put in their maps app. Hosting is the building — the always-on computer that holds the site. The website is what's inside: your pages, photos, prices and phone number. You need all three for a business site, and on a website builder the last two come together; the domain is the one piece with your name on it.
Two questions follow from this, and each has its own page: .com vs .net vs .org: which ending to pick, and what HTTPS and the padlock are.
Website and domain, one place
See your website before you buy a domain
Add what you do, your town and your business name, and Zarla builds the site from that one line in about 30 seconds. Build, edit and preview free; when you publish on a paid plan you can buy your domain inside Zarla or connect one you already own.
Already have a website? Bring it across →Zarla keeps your old page addresses where it can and redirects the ones that change, helping you keep the Google standing you've built.
Domain vs website vs hosting: what's the difference?
A domain is an address; a website is the thing at the address. You can register a domain and have nothing at it yet (lots of businesses buy the name before the site exists), and you can have a website with no domain of your own — it just lives at an address that belongs to whoever hosts it, like your-business.websitelive.com on Zarla or a .wixsite.com address on Wix.
Do you need your own domain if you already have a website? For a business, yes. Your own name is what goes on the van, the invoice and the business card; it's what customers remember and what Google treats as your business rather than someone else's; and it moves with you — if you ever change website builders, the address stays the same. A site on a borrowed address works, but it tells customers the business is new or temporary.
Hosting is the third thing, and the one most owners never need to buy separately: a website builder runs the site on its own hosting, so there's no server to rent. Do you need to buy website hosting? covers that question on its own.
THE PARTS OF A WEB ADDRESS
What each part of a domain name means
Take a fictional painter's address, www.harborcoatpainting.com/services with https:// in front, and read it from right to left.
| Part | In the example | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Top-level domain (TLD), or extension | .com | The ending. .com is for anyone; .org, .net and the rest were meant for particular kinds of sites; .com.au, .co.uk and .ca belong to countries. IANA's root zone database lists about 1,600 endings in all. Which one to pick has its own page, linked above. |
| Second-level domain | harborcoatpainting | The name you choose and register. Together with the ending it's the domain name: harborcoatpainting.com. Letters, numbers and hyphens, no spaces, and case doesn't matter. |
| Subdomain | www | An optional label in front, separated by a dot. www is the traditional one and points at the same site as the bare name; a business might use shop.yourbusiness.com for a store or book.yourbusiness.com for booking. Subdomains are set up by whoever controls the domain, at no extra charge. |
| Protocol | https:// | How the browser talks to the site. The s means the connection is encrypted — the padlock, in the browsers that still show one. What HTTPS is, linked above, explains what it does and doesn't prove. |
| Path | /services | The page within the site. The domain gets a visitor to your front door; the path takes them to a room. |
The structure follows MDN's explanation of a web address; the count of endings is IANA's root zone database, read October 2026. Both are linked under "Where these facts come from".
How a domain name works — and why you rent it rather than own it
Computers find each other by number, not by name. Every website lives at a numeric address (an IP address, something like 66.45.103.32). The Domain Name System — DNS — is the internet's phone book: when someone types your domain, their browser looks the name up, gets the number, and connects. "Connecting a domain" to a website means adding a line to that phone book that says your name points at the computer where your site lives. That's all the DNS records in a registrar's dashboard are.
Nobody owns a domain outright. You register it, for a year or more at a time, through a registrar — a company accredited by ICANN, the body that oversees the system — and you keep it as long as you keep renewing. Let it lapse and after a grace period anyone can register it, which is why auto-renew is the first box to tick. ICANN's rules also require the registrar to confirm your contact details: after a new registration you'll get a verification email, and a name whose owner doesn't respond within 15 days can be suspended until they do (ICANN's registrar agreement, 2013). It isn't spam; click the link.
The name is yours wherever the website lives. A domain registered in your name can be pointed at any website — a builder today, something else in ten years. Keep it registered to you, on an account you can log in to, with a card that won't expire. The business owners who lose a domain almost always lost it to an expired card or a developer's account they couldn't get into.
What a domain name costs
A .com runs about $14.99 a year at a typical registrar (WPBeginner, September 2025); other common endings sit in the same range, and country codes vary by country. That's the renewal price to plan around. First-year deals are common — and often renew at several times the sign-up price — so read the renewal line, not the headline.
Two things cost more. A name someone already owns and is reselling (an "aftermarket" or "premium" domain) is priced by the seller, from a few hundred dollars to far more; for a local business it's rarely worth it when adding your trade or town to the name gets you an unregistered .com. And privacy for your contact details, once a paid extra, is included by many registrars now.
Some website builders include the first year's registration with an annual plan. Zarla does on its 12-month and longer plans: buy the domain inside Zarla and the first year's registration is included on standard-price endings (the common ones, .com among them; a premium or unusually priced ending can carry a difference); after that it renews at the price shown at purchase. Email at your own domain (you@yourbusiness.com) is a separate subscription on a website builder, though some hosting accounts include mailboxes — Zarla doesn't include email hosting; Google Workspace is the usual choice, and the help article shows the setup (for a domain bought through Zarla, support adds the mail records for you).
STEP BY STEP
How to get a domain name for your business
Twenty minutes, most of it choosing the name. The same five steps whichever builder or registrar you use.
Choose the name
Your business name, as people say it. Short beats clever, and no hyphens or numbers — they get misheard on the phone. If the exact name is taken, add your trade or your town (smithplumbingaustin.com) before you change the ending.
Pick the ending
.com if it's available. If you serve one country, its country code (.com.au, .co.uk, .ca) is a strong choice. Skip .net unless you're a tech business, .org unless you're a nonprofit, and treat .co as a last resort — it's one letter off .com.
Check it's available and register it
Search the name at your website builder or a registrar. Register it in your own name, with auto-renew on and a card that won't expire. In Zarla, Site settings → Domain → Manage domain → Buy a domain does the search and the purchase in one place.
Connect it to your website
A domain bought through your builder connects itself. One bought elsewhere needs two records added at the registrar — the builder shows you exactly which — and the change can take up to 48 hours to reach everyone.
Check the padlock, then tell Google
Open your domain in a browser and look for the padlock — on most builders the certificate is set up for you once the domain connects. Then add the domain to Google Search Console and put it on your Google Business Profile, so the address Google shows is yours.
CHOOSING WELL
What makes a good domain name for a small business
The name will be on everything you print for years. Six checks before you buy.
- Easy to say on the phone. If you have to spell it, it's wrong. Read it aloud to someone who hasn't seen it written.
- Your business name first. The name people already know. Keywords in the domain (bestplumberaustin.com) don't rank you higher on their own, and they look like an ad.
- No hyphens, no numbers, no clever spellings. kwik-klean-2.com loses the customers who heard it and typed quickclean.com.
- Short, within reason. Adding your town is fine; adding a sentence isn't.
- Check the name isn't someone's trademark in your trade and area before you print it. Registering a domain doesn't give you the rights to a name; in the US, the USPTO's free trademark search is the place to start, and a trademark attorney if the name matters to you — check your local rules elsewhere.
- Register the obvious misspelling or the .com twin if it's cheap, and point it at the main site. One or two variants; not twenty.
Domains in Zarla: buy one, or bring the one you have
Two doors, both in the dashboard. Buy a domain through Zarla: search the name, pick the ending, and Zarla registers it, points it at your site and sets up the padlock, with no settings to copy. On 12-month and longer plans the first year's registration is included on standard-price endings. Or connect a domain you already own: Zarla shows you the two records to add wherever the domain is registered, with step-by-step guides for GoDaddy, Namecheap, Cloudflare and the other common registrars, then checks the connection for you.
When you publish on a paid plan, the certificate comes with it: Zarla sets up HTTPS on your Zarla address and on a domain you buy or connect, and renews it, with nothing for you to install. If a connected domain shows "Not secure" or doesn't load, it's almost always a record that hasn't reached everyone yet, or an old forwarding record still in the way: my domain isn't connecting walks through it. Had your domain with a site on the original Zarla? There's nothing to copy — ask and it's switched for you.
Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy and most hosting companies sell and connect domains too, and most include the certificate; the steps are the same shape everywhere. The difference you'll feel is how much of it is done for you, and whether the domain is registered in your name on an account you control. Make sure it is, wherever you buy it.
Domain names: common questions
The domain is the address (yourbusiness.com); the website is the pages, photos and words that appear when someone goes there. You register a domain through a registrar and you build a website with a builder or a developer — then you connect the two. A domain with nothing at it just shows a parking page; a website without its own domain lives at an address that belongs to whoever hosts it.
Search for the name at a registrar or inside your website builder, pay for a year or more, and verify your email when the registrar's message arrives. Then point it at your website: automatically if you bought it from the builder, or by adding the records the builder shows you at the registrar if you bought it elsewhere. With Zarla both happen from Site settings → Domain → Manage domain, and the connection check runs for you.
About $14.99 a year for a .com at a typical registrar (WPBeginner, September 2025), and about the same for most common endings; country codes vary by country. First-year promotions are common and renew higher, and a name someone is reselling costs whatever they ask. Some website builders include the first year's registration with an annual plan — check the plan's terms for the renewal price.
A subdomain is a label added in front of your domain — shop.yourbusiness.com — that can point at a different page or even a different service from the main site. Whoever controls the domain's DNS records creates them, for free, in the same dashboard where the domain is connected. www is the oldest subdomain and almost always points at the same site as the bare name. Most small businesses never need one beyond www.
There's no official seven; lists that say so are counting different things. The ones that matter: generic top-level domains (.com, .net, .org and the newer .shop, .app and so on); country-code top-level domains (.com.au, .co.uk, .ca, .de); sponsored ones restricted to a group (.gov, .edu, .museum); then the levels within an address — the second-level domain (the name you register) and subdomains (www, shop). Some lists add internationalized domains in non-Latin scripts and the infrastructure domain .arpa to reach seven.
Transferring moves the registration from one registrar to another, and it's a separate thing from pointing the domain at a new website — you can connect a domain to a new site without transferring it. To transfer: unlock the domain at the current registrar, get its authorization (EPP) code, start the transfer at the new registrar and approve the email. The name keeps working throughout. Under ICANN's transfer policy a name can't be transferred in its first 60 days, for 60 days after a transfer, or for 60 days after a change of owner unless you opted out of that last lock beforehand.
No. In the US, a person or a company can register a domain name — you don't need an LLC, a business license or a tax number first — and the same is true in most countries, though some country codes ask for a local presence or a registered business. Registering the domain doesn't protect the name as a trademark, and forming an LLC is a separate decision about liability and tax. If you're unsure, check your local rules or ask your accountant.
Your site can go live on the builder's own address, so strictly no — but for a business you'll want your own name on the van and the invoice. Every builder lets you connect one, and most will sell you one. With Zarla, you build and preview free; when you publish on a paid plan you can buy the domain from the dashboard or connect one you already own, and the padlock is set up for you either way.
Where these facts come from
The figures on this page are read off a published source, listed with the date we read it; the transfer rules are ICANN's. US prices before tax, typical rather than a rule. Related: .com vs .net vs .org: which ending to pick, what HTTPS and the padlock are and website hosting for small businesses.
- MDN Web Docs — What is a domain name? — no date on the page, read October 2026
- IANA — Root Zone Database (the list of every top-level domain) — no date on the page, read October 2026
- ICANN — 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement, Whois Accuracy Program Specification — dated September 2013, read October 2026
- ICANN — Transfer Policy (the 60-day locks after registration, transfer and change of owner) — dated June 2016, read October 2026
- WPBeginner — How Much Does It Really Cost to Build a WordPress Website? — dated September 2025, read September 2026
Get the website first — then the domain
Describe your business in one line and Zarla builds the whole site: pages, words, photos and the Google setup. Publish on a paid plan and buy or connect your domain from the same screen, with the padlock set up for you.
Already have a website? Bring it across →Zarla keeps your old page addresses where it can and redirects the ones that change, helping you keep the Google standing you've built.