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A domain name is the readable address people type to reach a website, for example agence-synqro.fr. Technically it is a label that DNS resolves into an IP address so a browser can reach the server hosting the pages. You do not buy it outright, you rent it: a registration runs from one to ten years and renews indefinitely. As long as you renew, it is yours. The day you miss the deadline, it goes back on the market and anyone can take it.
This guide covers choosing, buying and switching a domain on. It stops at the DNS zone. What happens after that, the server, the storage and the bandwidth, belongs to web hosting, and the difference between a domain, a site and a server is laid out in our article on what a website actually is.
How a domain name is structured
Read a domain from right to left. In agence-synqro.fr, the .fr is the extension, also called the TLD. agence-synqro is the second level domain, the part you choose and pay for. Anything in front of it, like www or blog, is a subdomain: it is free and you can create as many as you want from your DNS zone.
Three parties are involved. ICANN coordinates the naming system worldwide. A registry runs one extension, Afnic for .fr for instance. The registrar is the company you actually pay: OVHcloud, Gandi, IONOS, Cloudflare, Hostinger. Your account lives there, and they are who you call the day something breaks.
Choosing a name: five criteria, in this order
Short and sayable. The real test is not visual, it is spoken. If you have to spell your domain over the phone and explain twice where the hyphen goes, the name has failed. Multiple hyphens, digits and homophones cost you visitors every single day.
Free as a trademark, not just as a domain. A domain the registrar shows as available may already be registered as a trademark in your class of business. Checking the national trademark database takes five minutes and saves you a cease and desist two years later, once the name is on your cards, your invoices and your backlinks.
Room to grow. A name that describes your current offer too precisely becomes a constraint the day the offer changes. A brand name ages better than a product name.
Clean history. An expired domain has lived a life already. Before taking it, look at what it used to host, using the Internet Archive and a backlink tool. A spam history is paid for in penalties you did not earn.
No forced keyword. Putting your target query in the domain is no longer a ranking lever. Our client CADvision, in 3D printing, ranks on transactional queries in a crowded market with a brand domain that contains none of those words. Pages do the work, not the address.
Which extension to pick
For a French business serving French customers, .fr is the default. It signals where you are, and it is far less crowded than .com. Afnic, the registry behind it, reported 4.6 million active names in early September 2026, as the extension turned forty.
Country extensions work the same way elsewhere: .co.uk, .de, .be. Pick the one your customers expect to see.
The .com is still the international reference and the reflex a large share of users type without thinking. If your brand has any ambition outside its home country, register both and point the second at the first with a permanent redirect. It costs one domain a year and stops a competitor from setting up one letter away from you.
Newer generic extensions, .io, .ai, .studio, .agency, hold up when they say something about the business. Two caveats: their renewal price is often several times the first year, and part of the public still reads them as second tier addresses. Extensions offered under one euro for the first year are worth avoiding for a serious site, because they are heavily used for spam and that reputation rubs off.
What a domain name really costs
The advertised price is the first year. The price that matters is the renewal, which you pay every year for the life of the site.
| Extension | First year | Renewal | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| .fr | 4.99 EUR excl. VAT | 7.79 EUR excl. VAT | Default in France, the gap between first year and renewal stays small |
| .com | 7.99 EUR excl. VAT | 13.49 EUR excl. VAT | International reference, renewal costs close to double |
| .eu | 7.49 EUR excl. VAT | 7.49 EUR excl. VAT | Useful across Europe, restricted to EU residents and entities |
| .io | 30.99 EUR excl. VAT promotional | 59.74 EUR excl. VAT | Renewal roughly doubles, budget it over ten years before committing |
| 1 EUR offers | 1 EUR excl. VAT | 11 to 15 EUR excl. VAT | Loss leader pricing, the real price lands the following year |
OVHcloud and IONOS rates surveyed by La Fabrique du Net in July 2026. Orders of magnitude, to be checked on the registrar page on the day you buy.
Add two lines to the budget. Registration privacy, often included and sometimes billed: without it your contact details sit in the public WHOIS and the cold calls start within the hour. And the TLS certificate, free with most hosts today, but worth confirming.
Against a whole project budget the domain is a rounding error. The lines that actually weigh are elsewhere, and we broke them down in our analysis of what a website costs.
Buying a domain, step by step
1. Check availability. Use the registrar's own search. Be wary of unknown lookup sites: a few register the names people test and resell them at a markup.
2. Pick the registrar. Compare the renewal price rather than the headline one, the DNS management interface, and the transfer policy. A registrar that makes leaving difficult is telling you something.
3. Pick the term. One year is enough to test an idea. On a brand you intend to keep, buy several years at once, that is one missed renewal removed. The .fr accepts up to ten years.
4. Turn on auto renewal and check the contact address. This is the step people regret skipping. An expired domain takes the website and the email addresses down the same morning.
5. Validate your email address. On generic extensions ICANN requires it. Without validation the domain is suspended within days.
The name you want is taken
Start by looking at what sits behind it. A domain parked on an ad page has no active project and a conversation is possible. A live business, no.
WHOIS gives you the expiry date. If it is close and the domain looks abandoned, you can try a backorder service, with no guarantee. Otherwise contact the holder directly with a number rather than a request for a price: naming your budget stops the price from being set by your enthusiasm.
In most cases the better call is to change the name. A four figure domain buys an address, not an audience.
Three settings to get right on day one
A domain on its own does nothing. Three things put it into service.
DNS records. An A or CNAME record pointing the domain at your hosting, MX records for mail, a TXT record to verify ownership with Google's tools. If you use a site builder it hands you the exact values to copy.
One canonical version. Your site should answer on a single address. Choose between the www and the bare version, redirect the other with a 301, and do the same from HTTP to HTTPS. Without that, four different addresses serve the same page and split the credit between them. The mechanism and its traps are covered in our article on the canonical URL.
Email authentication. SPF, DKIM and DMARC in the DNS zone. Without those three records your messages land in spam and your domain can be spoofed to send mail in your name.
Changing domain without losing your rankings
A domain migration is the riskiest operation in the life of a website. It goes well when the redirect map is built beforehand, page by page, with a 301 from each old URL to its exact equivalent. No bulk redirect to the homepage: Google treats that as a soft 404 and the link value evaporates.
The rest is method. Keep both properties in Search Console, file the change of address, watch logs and rankings for six weeks, and change nothing else at the same time. A site that switches domain, design and URL structure on the same day makes every diagnosis impossible. Our article on the 301 redirect covers the implementation, and the search side is prepared upstream with a Webflow SEO agency.
Synqro is a Webflow agency and Premium Partner based in Paris. We run these migrations end to end, from the redirect map to the ranking follow up. If that is where you are, tell us about the project.
Frequently asked questions
Do you actually own a domain name?
No. You register it for a set term, one to ten years depending on the extension. It is a renewable right of use, not permanent ownership. If the renewal goes unpaid, the name becomes available again after a retention period.
How much does a domain name cost per year?
Budget 5 to 15 EUR excluding VAT a year for a .fr or a .com at a mainstream registrar, depending on the extension and the first year discount. Specialist extensions like .io run to several tens of euros at renewal.
Should I put a keyword in my domain name?
No. Exact match keyword domains no longer carry a ranking advantage and age badly when your offer moves. A short, sayable brand name is the better investment.
Should I register both the country extension and the .com?
If your brand has international ambition, or if the .com is simply free, yes. The cost is marginal and it stops someone else setting up one letter away. Point the second at the first with a permanent redirect.
What happens if I forget to renew my domain?
The website and the email stop immediately. A redemption period follows, usually thirty days, during which you can recover it for a steep restoration fee. After that the name goes back on sale.
Can I change registrar without losing the domain?
Yes. The transfer runs on an authorisation code issued by your current registrar, after unlocking the domain. The site stays online throughout as long as you leave the DNS zone alone. A transfer usually adds a year to the registration term.
Does the domain name affect local search?
Very little. What counts on a geolocated query is the pages, the business profile and local citations, not the address.
Is it worth buying an expired domain for its history?
Only after checking it. Look at the site history in the Internet Archive and at the link profile. A domain used for spam passes on its problems, not its authority.
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