.website Domain
The Most Direct Domain Possible
Register your .website domain from just £23.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included with every domain.
What is a .website domain?
The .website domain is about as direct as it gets. It tells visitors they're heading to a website, which sounds redundant until you realise it's actually a clean, unambiguous signal. Businesses building their first online presence, portfolio sites, and service pages all work well under .website. No industry baggage, no misinterpretation.
Who should register .website?
First-time website builders, small businesses, portfolio creators, and service professionals establishing an online presence.
Why choose .website?
- Zero ambiguity about what it is
- No industry limitation
- Good availability of names
- Clean and professional for any sector
Who runs .website, and since when
Registry data from the .website 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
- Radix Technologies Inc.
- The organisation that runs the extension
- In the root zone since
- 2014
- Delegated 22 May 2014
- Who can register
- Open to anyone worldwide, with no eligibility test and nothing to prove
- Checked against the registry's own policy
- Our price
- £23.99 a year
- Ex VAT. Renews at the same price
When a .website domain beats a padded .com
Most people who end up on a .website domain arrive the same way. The name they wanted is gone on .com and gone on .co.uk, the alternatives on offer are all padded (add "get", add "the", add "uk", add a hyphen), and none of them survive being read out over the phone. A .website keeps the name itself intact and moves the compromise to the part after the dot, where it does less damage to the thing people actually have to remember.
The extension entered the root zone on 22 May 2014 under Radix, in the first wave of new generic extensions, and picked about the most literal word available. That literalness is the product. Nobody needs the extension explained to them, there is no industry attached to it and no country attached to it, and there is no eligibility test of any kind. Radix runs open registration: anyone, anywhere, no documents, no local presence, no trade body membership.
What the .website registry does restrict
Not who registers, but which names exist. Radix reserves every two-character ASCII label at the second level, the country and territory names from the ISO 3166-1 lists, and terms tied to the International Olympic Committee and the Red Cross movement, so short national names were never on sale. Its acceptable use policy also lets the registry deny, suspend, cancel, delete, redirect or transfer a registration where the WHOIS details are inaccurate or the registration fits an abusive pattern. Keep a real contact record on the domain and none of that reaches you, but it is why a domain bought against a throwaway address is a weaker asset than one bought properly.
Two costs are worth doing arithmetic on before you commit. The first is the annual bill: a .website costs well over twice a .co.uk here, and more than our .com, every year, for as long as the business exists. The second is search. Google treats any extension the root zone resolves as generic unless ICANN classes it a country code, so a .website carries no geographic weight at all. A UK trade competing against other UK trades gets nothing from it that a .co.uk would not give for less.
Where we would use one: when the name matters more than the extension, when the audience is national or international rather than local, and when saying the address out loud is how people will get it. Register the matching .co.uk alongside if it is still free, point one at the other, and you have removed the typo problem for the price of a cheap second domain.
Unless ICANN lists a top-level domain as a country code top-level domain (ccTLD), Google will treat any TLD that resolves through the IANA DNS root zone as a gTLD.
What that means if you are buying one
That single sentence settles the question people ask about every new extension. There is no hidden ranking bonus and no hidden penalty in a .website: Google files it beside .com and moves on. The geographic lift a UK business is usually after has to come from a ccTLD, or from the address, language and Business Profile signals Google names separately.
Is .website the right choice for you?
We would rather sell you the right extension once than the wrong one twice.
.website works well if
- The name you want is taken on .com and .co.uk, and you would rather keep it whole than bolt "get" or "my" on the front of it.
- You are putting up a first site for a service, a trade or a portfolio, and the address mainly has to survive being said out loud.
- Your audience is not tied to one country, so the UK signal a .co.uk carries would do nothing for you anyway.
- You want an extension with no eligibility test, no local presence rule and no paperwork, in any country you happen to be in.
Look elsewhere if
- Price matters. A .website costs well over twice a .co.uk here and more than our .com, and that gap recurs every year you own it.
- You sell to UK customers who search locally. Google reads .website as generic, so it gives you none of the country signal a .co.uk does.
- People will half-remember the address and type .com. Any extension that is not .com carries that leak, and .website is not memorable enough to stop it.
- It describes rather than names. Beside a competitor's short .co.uk on a quote or a van, "yourname.website" can read as the address someone settled for.
Selling mainly to UK customers? A .co.uk costs a fraction of this and carries a UK signal in Google that no generic extension can. See .co.uk pricing.
.website vs .co.uk: which should you register?
This is the comparison that actually decides it for a British buyer, and it is not close on cost. The .co.uk is the cheapest thing on this page by a wide margin, it transfers between hosts in minutes rather than days, and Nominet withholds a private registrant's name and address from WHOIS at no charge. A .website matches none of that.
Where .website wins: availability. The .co.uk you want may well be gone, and the honest choice is then between a padded .co.uk and a clean .website with the name intact. It also wins if your customers are not British, because a UK country code aimed at an international audience is a signal working against you.
Where .co.uk wins: price, search, privacy, transfer speed and the plain fact that UK customers expect it. If you sell to people who search from Britain, this is not a close call. Buy the .co.uk, and treat the .website as the one you add later if you want the name whole.
| .website | .co.uk | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Generic, open worldwide | Country-code, second level under .uk |
| In the root zone since | 2014 | 1985 |
| Signal to Google | Generic, no country weight | Strong UK country signal |
| WHOIS privacy | Paid add-on | Free, withheld by default |
| Annual cost | Over twice a .co.uk | The cheaper of the two by far |
| Transfer time | Hours to seven days | Near instant IPS tag change |
.website domain questions, answered
What people ask us before registering a .website domain.
Can't find what you're looking for?
Ask us directlyIt looks plain rather than cheap, and plain is not the same problem. The extension carries no industry association and no status, so it neither helps nor hurts a brand on sight. What it does do is describe rather than name: a reader takes "yourname.website" as a label for a web page instead of the name of a company. That suits a portfolio, a project or a first site. It suits a firm pitching against established competitors rather less.
No. Radix runs .website as an open extension with no eligibility test, so an individual, a sole trader, a charity or a company anywhere in the world can hold one. There is no local presence rule, no trade body membership to prove and no documents to supply at registration or afterwards. The registry reserves certain names, including two-character labels and the ISO country and territory names, but that limits which names exist rather than who may buy them.
It is neutral, not bad. Google treats any extension that resolves through the IANA root zone as generic unless ICANN classes it a country code, and .website is generic, so it neither gains nor loses ranking on the extension alone. The practical catch is what it does not give you: a .co.uk is a strong country signal to Google for UK searches and a .website is not, so a business selling locally is giving up something real for nothing in return.
The registry sets the wholesale price and Radix prices .website above what Verisign charges for .com. That is a commercial decision by the registry rather than anything technical: DNS resolution, DNSSEC support, mail records and everything else behave identically on both. If you assumed a newer extension would be the budget option, check the two prices side by side on this site before you order, because on this one the assumption is backwards.
Only in the circumstances Radix publishes, and inaccurate contact details are the one most people trip over. The acceptable use policy lets the registry deny, suspend, cancel, delete, redirect or transfer a registration for abusive use, for a pattern of registrations showing abusive trends, on a law enforcement request, or where the WHOIS information is wrong. Register in your real name with an address you monitor, keep it current when you move, and this stays theoretical.
If it is free, yes, and it is the cheapest insurance on this page. A .co.uk costs a fraction of a .website here, catches the customers who guess wrongly, and gives you the UK country signal in Google that the .website cannot. Point one at the other with a redirect so there is only ever one address to print and one site for Google to index. Running two live copies of the same site is the mistake to avoid.
Included with Your .website 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 Technology Domains Extensions
Register your .website domain today
Secure your .website domain from just £23.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included.
