.news Domain
Break Stories Under Your Own Banner
Register your .news domain from just £29.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included with every domain.
This domain has registration restrictions
Anyone may register a .news domain, and no journalism or press credential is checked. The rules that exist govern how you use it, and the registry can act on a domain without telling you first. Read the full eligibility rules.
What is a .news domain?
The .news domain is purpose-built for current affairs, journalism, and timely information. It immediately positions your website as a source of news content, whether you're an established outlet or a niche publication.
Who should register .news?
News outlets, independent journalists, community news sites, and industry news publications.
Why choose .news?
- Instant news source recognition
- Builds reader trust
- Works for any news niche
- Clear editorial purpose
Who runs .news, and since when
Registry data from the .news 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
- Dog Beach, LLC
- The organisation that runs the extension
- In the root zone since
- 2015
- Delegated 12 March 2015
- Who can register
- Open to anyone; there is no press accreditation or journalism check of any kind
- Checked against the registry's own policy
- Our price
- £29.99 a year
- Ex VAT. Renews at the same price
What a .news domain does not verify about you
Start with the thing nobody selling this extension puts on the page. Registering a .news domain proves nothing about you. There is no editors' body to satisfy, no press card to produce, no register of publications to join. The order goes through in the same few seconds as a .co.uk, and a reader looking at the address afterwards cannot tell whether it belongs to a regional newspaper or to somebody who bought it on Tuesday.
That is not an argument against it. It is the frame for using it well. The extension states your purpose clearly and immediately, which is worth having: an address ending in .news tells a first-time visitor what the site is for before a single headline loads. What it cannot do is stand in for the things that actually build a reader's trust, which are a named author, a real postal address, a corrections policy and reporting somebody else has not already published.
The registry does police it, but only afterwards
IANA entered .news into the root zone on 12 March 2015. The sponsoring organisation on record is Dog Beach, LLC, care of Identity Digital, following an IANA transfer dated 2 June 2021, which is why a WHOIS lookup returns a company name most people have never met. The same Identity Digital Acceptable Use Policy that covers its other extensions applies here, and two of its listed abusive uses are aimed squarely at this one: impersonating a government or similarly trusted source for a malicious purpose, and holding yourself out as having a status or credential associated with an extension when you do not have it.
Those are complaint-driven. Nothing is checked at the point of sale, and the registry acts when abuse is reported to it. So a .news domain used to dress up a fake local paper can be suspended, but not before it has been noticed. For an honest publisher the practical takeaway is narrow and useful: put your ownership, your address and your author names on the site, because the extension will not do that job for you and the absence is more conspicuous on a .news than anywhere else.
For a UK local news site there is one more consideration. Google reads a .co.uk as a signal that the site is meant for a British audience, and reads .news as a generic extension with no country attached. If your readership is one town, that signal is worth more than the word.
holding oneself out as having a status, credential, or authorization associated with a TLD when such status, credential, or authorization doesn't exist
What that means if you are buying one
Read it as a backstop, not a gate. Nobody checks anything when you order, so the extension never certifies you; the registry only steps in once somebody complains. That cuts both ways for a publisher: you are not vetted, and neither is the site that copies your masthead onto a similar name.
Who is allowed to register .news?
Anyone may register a .news domain, and no journalism or press credential is checked. The rules that exist govern how you use it, and the registry can act on a domain without telling you first.
- No accreditation test
- There is no eligibility criterion, no local presence requirement and no documentation. A .news is sold on exactly the same terms as any other Identity Digital extension, so the address itself says nothing about who is behind the site.
- Impersonation is prohibited
- Identity Digital's Acceptable Use Policy lists impersonation of any government or similarly trusted source for a malicious purpose among the abusive uses of a domain, alongside claiming a status or credential associated with the extension that you do not hold.
- Accurate contact details are a condition
- The policy allows the registry to act where a registrant fails to keep registration information accurate or up to date. Registering under details you cannot be reached at is a live risk to the domain, not an administrative nicety.
- If the rules are broken
- Identity Digital reserves the right, at its own discretion and without limitation, to deny, suspend, cancel, redirect or transfer a registration, or place the domain on registry lock or hold. The policy describes no appeals process, and a suspended domain takes the website and its email with it.
Rules taken from the Identity Digital Acceptable Use Policy. Registry policy can change, so check before you buy if the answer matters to you.
Not sure whether you qualify? Ask us before you order and we will check the registry rules with you. We would rather answer the question than take an order the registry will refuse.
Is .news the right choice for you?
We would rather sell you the right extension once than the wrong one twice.
.news works well if
- You are launching a publication that does not have a legacy name to protect, so an address that announces its purpose is worth more than a familiar extension.
- You cover one subject seriously, and putting the subject before the dot gives you an address that reads as a title: coastal.news, tribunal.news.
- The masthead you want has been taken on .co.uk and .com since the print era, and the .news is free.
- Your traffic arrives from social platforms, newsletters and aggregators, where the domain is read rather than typed.
Look elsewhere if
- You publish for one British town or county. A .co.uk carries a UK signal in Google that .news cannot, and local search is where that readership comes from.
- You need readers to trust the site on sight. The extension is sold to anybody, so it confers no standing, and some readers now associate unfamiliar extensions with scraped content.
- It costs several times a .co.uk each year, on a publication that may take years to earn anything.
- You will be reading the address out on air or over the phone. Expect to spell it, and expect a share of listeners to try the .com.
Covering one town or county? A .co.uk does more for local search and costs a fraction as much. See .co.uk pricing.
.news vs .com: which should you register?
For a new publication these are the two real candidates, and the choice comes down to what you would rather the address do: describe the site, or disappear.
.com disappears, which is a compliment. It is the extension people type without thinking, it has been in the root zone since 1985, it carries no meaning to argue with, and it costs less every year. Every large news brand you can name is on one. The problem is availability. A one-word or two-word .com in any news category went decades ago, so the honest comparison is usually between a clean .news and a padded, hyphenated or abbreviated .com.
.news describes, and for a title with no existing recognition that is worth something. It also survives being read in a list of search results better than a made-up compound word does.
Neither one vets you, and that is worth saying plainly, because the same reasoning that says a .news looks like a news site says a .com looks like a company. Readers decide from the reporting, not from the address. If the budget allows both, take the .com as the permanent home and let the .news redirect to it.
| .news | .com | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Generic, from the 2012 round | Generic, original seven |
| In the root zone since | 2015 | 1985 |
| Who may register | Anyone, no press check | Anyone |
| What the address says | This site publishes news | Nothing in particular |
| Short names left | Some, in most subjects | Very few without hyphens |
| Annual cost | Several times a .co.uk | Low |
.news domain questions, answered
What people ask us before registering a .news domain.
Can't find what you're looking for?
Ask us directlyNo. There is no accreditation, no press card, no membership of any press body and no documentation of any kind. The extension is sold openly to anyone worldwide on the same terms as .today or .media. That is the single most useful thing to understand about it, in both directions: nothing stands between you and the registration, and nothing stands between anybody else and one either.
Neutral, with one real drawback for a UK publication. Google has stated that keywords in a top-level domain give no advantage or disadvantage in search, so the word buys you no ranking. The drawback is geographic: Google reads .co.uk as a signal that a site is intended for a British audience, while a .news carries no country attachment at all. For a title covering one town or county, that missing signal matters more than the descriptive word.
It makes the purpose clear, which is not the same thing. Because anyone can buy one, the extension cannot certify a publisher, and readers who have met a few low-quality sites on unfamiliar extensions may read it more sceptically than you expect. Trust is built by the things around the reporting: a named author with a biography, a postal address, a corrections policy and original work. Put those on the site and the extension helps. Leave them off and it will not rescue you.
Dog Beach, LLC, care of Identity Digital, is the sponsoring organisation recorded by IANA. It arrived there through an IANA transfer dated 2 June 2021, which is why a WHOIS lookup on a .news domain returns a company name you will not recognise. IANA maintains the root zone, so its delegation record is the authoritative answer rather than whatever a reseller's marketing page states.
Yes, in the circumstances the registry publishes. Identity Digital's Acceptable Use Policy lets it suspend, cancel, redirect or transfer a registration, or place it on registry lock, for reasons including abusive use, trademark infringement and a registrant failing to keep contact details accurate. Impersonating a trusted source is listed among abusive uses. Keep your registrant details current and reachable, and the realistic risk to an honest publication is close to nil.
A .co.uk, in most cases. Local news lives or dies on local search, and the .co.uk is the extension Google associates with a British audience and the one your readers will type from memory. It also costs a fraction as much each year, which matters on a title that takes a long time to pay for itself. Register the .news alongside it if the name is available, and point it at the same site.
Included with Your .news 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 Media & Content Domains Extensions
Register your .news domain today
Secure your .news domain from just £29.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included.
