Registering the Business Name and the Domain

Two separate things

A business name registration is a filing with a government registry.

A domain is a rental from a registrar, on a first-come basis, with no reference to any registry anywhere.

Neither system knows the other exists, which means registering one gives you nothing in the other.

A business can be perfectly legally named something whose domain belongs to a stranger in another country.

The order to do it in

Domain availability first, before the name is decided.

Which is the reverse of how most businesses do it, since the name feels like the important decision and the domain like an administrative step afterwards.

By then the name is on the paperwork, the van and the letterhead, and the domain is taken.

Checking takes seconds and it should happen while the name is still a shortlist rather than a decision.

A name whose domain is unavailable is worth knowing about while changing it is still free.

What to check before committing

• The domain, in the extensions you want.
• The business name registry for your jurisdiction.
• Trademarks, which are a separate system again.
• Existing businesses trading under something similar locally.
• Social handles, which matter less and are worth a look.

The third is the one most often skipped and the one with the most serious consequences, since a trademark holder can require you to stop using a name you have registered.

A worked example

A business that registered its name, ordered signage and vehicle graphics, and then discovered the matching domain had been held by somebody else since 2009.

The holder was willing to sell, at a price well above what the business had budgeted for its entire website.

Their options were paying it, choosing a different domain that did not match the name, or renaming.

They took a variation, adding their town to the domain, which works and which permanently means the domain and the name are not quite the same.

Every printed item since has carried a web address that requires a small explanation.

Ten seconds of checking, before the name was decided, would have avoided all of it.

Similar names locally

The check most likely to be skipped and the one that causes ongoing friction.

A name close to an existing local business produces confusion for both, misdirected calls, and reviews left on the wrong listing.

None of that is a legal problem necessarily, and all of it is a daily nuisance for years.

Searching the trade and the area, and looking at who is already operating, takes ten minutes.

It is worth doing even where the name is legally available, since availability and distinctiveness are different questions.

When the domain is taken

The realistic options, in rough order of preference.

Choose a different name, if the name is not yet committed, which is by far the cheapest resolution.

Add something meaningful: the town, the trade, or a word that reads naturally.

A different extension, which is a genuine option and carries its own considerations.

Or approach the holder, understanding that an enquiry from a business with the matching name signals value and frequently raises the price.

What rarely works is waiting for it to lapse, since valuable domains are renewed and dropped ones are caught by automated services within minutes.

The counter-case

Where an exact match matters less than it seems to.

A business whose customers arrive by search and recommendation rather than by typing an address, which is most of them.

Anywhere the domain is short and memorable even if it is not the name, since usability matters more than exactness.

And an established business with an existing address, where changing it costs more than the mismatch does.

The exact match is worth having and it is not worth renaming a working business for, and the decision is different before and after launch.

Registering it properly

Details that matter years later and are decided in a rushed five minutes.

Register it in the business name, with a business email address, not a personal one belonging to whoever was setting it up.

Use an email address that will still exist if that person leaves, which rules out a designer's or an employee's address.

Enable auto-renewal and check the card on file annually.

Turn on whatever privacy protection the registrar offers, which keeps your home address out of a public record if you work from home.

And write down where it is registered and who holds the account, since that is the information nobody can find when it matters.

Who holds the account

The detail that becomes a crisis at the worst possible moment.

A domain registered in a designer's account, or a former employee's, belongs to them in every practical sense.

Which becomes apparent when the relationship ends, the renewal fails, or somebody needs to change a setting and nobody can log in.

Recovering a domain from an uncooperative or uncontactable holder ranges from tedious to impossible.

The correct arrangement is the business holding its own registrar account, with suppliers given access rather than ownership.

Checking whose account yours sits in takes five minutes and is worth doing now rather than discovering it later.

Trade name against legal name

A distinction worth understanding, since it affects what goes where.

A business may operate under a trading name different from its legal entity name, which is normal and requires its own registration in most jurisdictions.

The domain and the website generally use the trading name, since that is what customers know.

The legal name belongs on invoices, contracts and in the website footer, which is a requirement in some contexts and a trust signal generally.

Having both stated, in the right places, is the arrangement that satisfies everybody, and the specifics vary by jurisdiction and are worth confirming rather than assuming.

Before committing to a name

1. Check the domain first.
2. Check the business name registry.
3. Check trademarks.
4. Search for similar local businesses.
5. Register the domain the same day as the name.
6. Record where it is registered and in whose account.

The fifth matters because a gap of even a few days between deciding a name and registering the domain is a gap in which somebody else can register it, and that does happen.

Choosing the name itself is covered in picking a domain you will not regret.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.