What is a domain name?
Definition
A domain name is your website's address on the internet, like yourbusiness.com. It's what people type into a browser, what follows the @ in a business email address, and what goes on your signs and cards. You rent it from a domain registrar a year or more at a time, and it stays yours while you renew.
Why your domain name matters to a small business
Your domain is the one piece of your online presence you fully control. Social pages, directory listings and even your Google profile live on someone else's platform. Your domain carries your website, your email and every link, card and review reply that points to them. Lose it, through a missed renewal or a designer who registered it in their own name, and you lose all of that at once.
A domain has two parts. In yourbusiness.com, "yourbusiness" is the name you choose and ".com" is the ending, called a top-level domain. Endings like .net, .co and .law exist, but .com is what most people type out of habit. A domain isn't the same as hosting: the domain is the address, and hosting is the building your site lives in.
For restaurants, the domain is printed on menus, receipts and takeout bags, so short and easy to spell beats clever. For law firms, it's usually the firm name, and when partners change, keeping the old domain and forwarding it to the new one protects years of referrals. For churches, adding the town helps when several churches share a name.
How to choose a good domain name
- Start with your business name, the way customers say it.
- Keep it short, easy to spell and easy to say over the phone.
- Prefer .com, and add your town or trade if the plain name is taken.
- Avoid hyphens, numbers and spellings you'd have to explain.
- Put the business down as the owner, with an email address you'll keep.
- Keep the registrar login somewhere safe, with someone else in the business who knows where.
How Future handles it
On every Future plan your website runs on your own domain: bring one you already own and connect it. Yearly plans will add a free domain for the first year; that's Coming soon.
Your domain stays yours. If you ask for a refund, Future keeps only a claimed domain's cost, and the domain is still yours to use anywhere, with any website or email service.