.cologne Domain
Cologne's English-Language City Domain
Register your .cologne domain from just £30.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included with every domain.
What is a .cologne domain?
The .cologne domain is the English-language counterpart to .koeln, representing Germany's fourth-largest city. Cologne is famous for its cathedral, carnival, trade fairs (Koelnmesse), and media industry. Managed by dotKoeln GmbH, .cologne serves international businesses and English-speaking audiences who know the city by its English name. If your audience is German-speaking, .koeln may be a better fit, but for international marketing, .cologne carries broader recognition.
Who should register .cologne?
Cologne-based businesses, trade fair exhibitors, international companies in Cologne, and tourism operators targeting English-speaking visitors.
Why choose .cologne?
- English-language counterpart to .koeln
- Represents Germany's fourth-largest city
- Strong trade fair and media industry ties
- Better international recognition than .koeln
Who runs .cologne, and since when
Registry data from the .cologne delegation record held by IANA, which maintains the internet's root zone. Eligibility comes from the registry's own policy, and the prices are ours.
- Extension type
- Generic (gTLD)
- Registry operator
- dotKoeln GmbH
- The organisation that runs the extension
- In the root zone since
- 2014
- Delegated 13 March 2014
- Who can register
- Open to anyone worldwide, with no Cologne connection or local contact required
- Checked against the registry's own policy
- Our price
- £30.99 a year
- Ex VAT. Renews at the same price
Why .cologne and .koeln share one registry policy
One city, two spellings, one registry. dotKoeln GmbH operates .cologne and .koeln together under a single General Registration Policy that treats them as one namespace with two endings, so the rules, the term lengths and the excluded names are identical on both. The only decision left to you is which spelling your audience types, and that is a marketing question rather than a policy one.
The policy is worth reading precisely because of what is not in it. There is no local presence test, no Cologne nexus, no required local contact and no use requirement. Anyone anywhere can register one, on a first come, first served basis, for one to ten years. That is a real difference from .berlin, where the registry does gate registration behind a demonstrable connection to the city and a 12-month use rule, and it is the kind of difference that only shows up when you compare the two policies side by side.
What the policy does exclude is narrower. Strings likely to be used for criminally punishable content, expletives and words that would offend on ordinary reading are unavailable, trade mark owners can block terms through the registry agreement's label blocking service, and a set of reserved names is held for public bodies. If a name comes back unavailable with no registration behind it, one of those is usually why.
Our steer for a UK reader: .cologne makes sense if you exhibit at Koelnmesse, run tours or events in the city, or serve English-speaking visitors to it. If the audience is German, they will type .koeln, and running both means two registrations and two renewals for one website. Decide which one gets the traffic and point the other at it rather than splitting your links between two addresses.
Is .cologne the right choice for you?
We would rather sell you the right extension once than the wrong one twice.
.cologne works well if
- You exhibit at a Cologne trade fair and want an address for the German market that an international buyer can read and spell.
- Your audience is English-speaking visitors to the city: tours, venues, accommodation, events, anything a tourist searches in English.
- Your name has gone in .com and .de, and adding the city gives it back a meaning rather than padding it with a filler word.
- You want a German city extension without an eligibility rule to satisfy at order time or defend later.
Look elsewhere if
- Your customers are German. They will type .koeln, and asking a German speaker to use the English spelling of their own city is an odd way to start.
- You are running one website. Holding .cologne and .koeln together doubles the annual bill for a single site, and you still have to pick which one to promote.
- You want UK search visibility. This is a generic top-level domain in IANA's classification, so it carries no country signal at all, let alone a British one.
Selling to UK customers rather than Cologne ones? A .co.uk gives a country signal in Google that no city extension can, for less each year. See .co.uk pricing.
.cologne vs .com: which should you register?
The reason anyone looks at a city extension is availability. Ordinary two-word names in ordinary categories left .com in the early 2000s, and what is left is usually longer, hyphenated or padded with a word nobody says out loud.
.com remains the default people type and the safest single address a business can hold. .cologne gives you a short, meaningful name that is still free, and puts a real word to work rather than an abbreviation. Against that, it is a generic top-level domain, so it does nothing for geographic ranking signals, and it needs explaining to anyone outside the region.
The pattern that works is the one most city-domain holders end up at anyway: a .com or .co.uk as the permanent business address, and the city domain as the one on the trade fair stand, the vehicle livery and the printed material, redirecting to the main site.
| .cologne | .com | |
|---|---|---|
| Who may register | Anyone, no local test | Anyone worldwide |
| Short names left | Plenty, in most categories | Very few without hyphens |
| Geographic meaning | Reads as Cologne to a person | None |
| Country signal in search | None, it is a generic TLD | None |
| In the root zone since | 2014 | 1985 |
.cologne domain questions, answered
What people ask us before registering a .cologne domain.
Can't find what you're looking for?
Ask us directlyNo. The dotKoeln General Registration Policy sets no local presence requirement, no Cologne connection test and no local contact rule for .cologne or .koeln. Registration is first come, first served through an accredited registrar, for a term of one to ten years. That is a deliberate contrast with .berlin, whose registry does require a demonstrable connection to that city, so do not assume German city extensions all work the same way.
Follow your audience. German speakers write Koeln and will type .koeln; English speakers write Cologne and will type .cologne. If you are marketing to international visitors, exhibitors or buyers, take .cologne. If you serve local German customers, .koeln is the one they will find. Registering both is defensible for a brand worth protecting, but it doubles the annual cost and you still have to choose which address gets promoted.
It is worth it as a campaign address and rarely worth it as your only one. A short, memorable .cologne on a stand, a badge or a leaflet gets typed and remembered at a trade fair in a way a long .co.uk does not. As your permanent business address it costs more than a .co.uk, carries no country signal in UK search, and asks German customers to use the English spelling of their own city.
Included with Your .cologne Domain
DNS Management
Full DNS zone editor to manage A, CNAME, MX, TXT, and all record types.
Email Forwarding
Set up professional email addresses and forward to any inbox.
Auto-Renewal
Never lose your domain with automatic renewal protection.
Free 10GB Mailbox
One 10GB mailbox (POP3/IMAP) included with every domain, on any TLD.
Other Geographic Domains Extensions
Register your .cologne domain today
Secure your .cologne domain from just £30.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included.
