Why Do We Have to Pay for Domain Names?
If you’re an owner of a business, you probably have a site attached to it. There are very few businesses nowadays that don’t operate over the internet at least in some capacity, especially considering how boosted internet business has been due to the pandemic. When creating your internet website, you’ll have to settle on a name and purchase a domain in that name. For this reason, people pose many questions, including: why do they even have to pay for domain names?
Buying a domain is essentially buying a home on the internet (or at least renting one out if you don’t intend to stay there that long). You’re not really buying the domain name, just renting it from the registrar, and you’re paying them for routing the name to an actual server, it would lead nowhere without it.
This is just one of the many intricacies surrounding domains. This is essentially your home on the web, and buying a domain should be looked at like buying a house or an apartment – it’s your place on the internet. This is just one of the things we’ll be looking into in today’s article. We’ll be giving you the answer to several questions, including why do we have to pay for domain names, how to permanently own a domain name, and what is the best site to buy a domain name from?
Why Do We Have to Pay for Domain Names?
This question has more to do with the behind-the-scenes infrastructure of the internet than with anything else, really. The reason you’re paying for the domain is solely maintenance.
This may not seem like a big deal, but in reality, it costs money to build and maintain the Internet. One thing you may also not appreciate (because you don’t know about it), is that it also costs a lot of money to purchase, configure and host all these servers, hire the designers and the programmers needed to keep them up and running, the administration and the management, etc.
The fees that you pay to register your domain on the internet are there mostly to cover the cost of keeping these servers functional, which in return means that your site will be up and running.
It should be noted that the internet is much cheaper now than it was two decades ago. It got more popular, obviously, and buying domains became cheaper.
In reality, you’re not buying your domain – the domain is legally not yours, you’re just renting it and paying the real owner the right to rent it and the fees that go along with maintenance. Just like everything else in the world, the internet is a business, and there are very few things online that go unpaid for.
How to Permanently Own a Domain Name?
We’re going to have to disappoint you and say that you can’t buy a domain name and permanently own it. It’s impossible. The closest you can come to that is pay for several years upfront, sometimes even a decade upfront, and ensure that no one else gets to take it for themselves.
You have to re-register your domain on a yearly basis, and if you don’t, it will automatically expire exactly one year after you’ve paid for it. There are companies that offer a grace period on renewal, meaning that they’ll give you a few days (after the year has passed) to think about renewal, and only then will your domain ownership expire.
The only way you can actually own a domain name permanently is to also be your own registrar. Registrars are the companies holding and upkeeping domain names, and this move may be a surplus if you’re a small company. However, if you’re a large company and you don’t want someone else pulling your strings by increasing your fees once a year, then you can become a registrar as well, and then you can register your domain name within that registrar.
If the registrar is a part of your company, then no one can buy your name or change your fees since you own the registrar. This move, however, isn’t really smart for small companies or even medium ones, as it’s very expensive.
What Is the Best Site to Buy a Domain Name?
If you’re looking to buy only a domain, Namecheap should be your top choice (in our opinion).
This way, you’ll get great value with shared hosting in particular, and they offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. The prices are very low, and the starter plan can host up to three domains at a time. They have very good and very well-designed cPanel-powered site management, and convertible VPS plans.
Even though Namecheap is best known as a domain registrar, they also have web hosting plans.
Here’s one of their reviews:
“Great domain registrar and one of my favorite… I have been a Namecheap customer for quite a few years and I love the fact they have affordable prices, an awesome support system, they offer free who is and DNS management. And yes, they don’t kill me with their renewal prices.”
If you’re looking for a domain registrar in combination with hosting, we’d recommend taking a look at Bluehost. They’ve been up and running since 2003, and have since one of the world’s largest providers of reliable and cheap web hosting. The trust that they’re enjoying from their customers isn’t without reason.
They make it easy to get a site up and running, their interface is very intuitive and easy to use (it’s ideal for beginners), they have a wide array of great features that you’ll enjoy using, they’re fast, they have very reliable servers, and the security features at the friendly cost will certainly pleasantly surprise you.