Buying a domain name, explained properly

Find a name worth owning

Start here. A good name is short, easy to say out loud, and easy to spell after hearing it once — that is most of it.

1. Say the name down an imaginary phone line. If you have to spell it twice, it will cost you customers forever.
2. Shorter wins. Two syllables beats four. No hyphens, no numbers, no deliberate misspellings.
3. Describe your idea in the Name Studio and it will show you the names here that fit your sector.
4. Can't find it? Ask us to go and find one for you — that is a real service, not a form that goes nowhere.

Check it before you fall in love

This is the step people skip, and it is the one that hurts. Ten minutes here can save you a rebrand.

1. Search the name at your national trademark office, and in every country you plan to trade in. A domain name is not a trademark, and buying one does not give you the right to use it as a brand.
2. Check the social handles you want are free, and grab them before you buy if you can.
3. Look the name up in a search engine. Find out what it already means to people, and whether anything unpleasant is attached to it.
4. Ownership of every name here is verified before it is listed, so that part is already done for you.

Checking trademarks is your job, not ours, and it has to happen before you buy. We are not responsible for a clash with your planned use.

Agree a price

Buy at the listed price, or make an offer and talk. Confirm your email with the code we send, and you get your own private deal page, which is where everything happens.

1. Buy now takes the listed price. An offer opens a conversation — we may accept it, decline it, or counter.
2. A sale is agreed only when both sides accept a price on your deal page, or in writing. Nothing before that binds you.
3. Once agreed, the price is held for 7 days. Pay inside that window or the deal lapses and the name goes back on sale.
4. Your deal link works like a key. Anyone holding it can see and answer that deal, so keep it to yourself.
5. Prices are set in US dollars. Your own currency is a guide that moves daily. Once a price is agreed it is fixed on your deal page for the number of days shown there, and recalculated if you pay later.

Pay safely

Read this part properly. This is where people lose money, and almost always to someone who is not us.

1. Escrow is the safest way to buy a name from anyone, us included. A neutral third party holds your money and releases it only once the domain has actually reached you.
2. Payment details appear on your private deal page and nowhere else. Not in an email, not in a message, however convincing it looks.
3. Nobody here will ever ask for your password, a login code, or remote access to your computer.
4. Nobody here will rush you. If you are being hurried, that is a warning sign, not a deal.
5. A completed sale is final: no returns, no exchanges, no re-negotiation — except where we cannot deliver the name, or where your local consumer law gives you a right that cannot be excluded. Read that before you pay rather than after.

Make it yours

The good part. The name arrives, and then it is yours to actually use.

1. The transfer runs through your registrar and usually takes 5 to 7 days. We guide you through each step.
2. The moment it lands: turn on auto-renew and registrar lock, and switch on two-step login. A name that expires because nobody renewed it can be lost for good.
3. Set up email on your own name — you@yourname.com — before anything else. It is the fastest thing that makes a new business look real.
4. Then point it at a website, and get the padlock turned on.