The domain: choosing, registering and never losing it

The café that disappeared

A café in Angra had its website built by a nephew, who registered the domain in his own name. For years it went fine. Then the nephew emigrated, stopped looking at the registration emails and the domain lapsed. One summer day the website vanished, and the café's email (reservas@…) stopped receiving messages. No warning.

The owner phoned the nephew, who no longer remembered the password. Getting the domain back took weeks, and customers who wrote in that period got no reply.

None of this was technical. It was a matter of who owns the name.

What a domain is, and what it is not

The domain is the name of your address on the internet: padariaamaral.pt. That is all.

• It is not the website. The website is the page, and it lives somewhere else (the hosting, from the previous lesson).
• It is not the email. Email uses the domain in the address (geral@padariaamaral.pt), but it is a separate service.

A domain is like a shop's phone number: you can change premises, decor, internet provider, and the number is still yours. As long as you hold it.

Choosing the name and the ending

The ending. For a local business in Portugal, .pt is clear and inspires trust. .com suits those who want to speak beyond the country. If your name exists on both, register both and make one point to the other, so nobody gets it wrong.

The name.

• Short and easy to say on the phone ("padaria amaral dot pt").
• No hyphens and, if possible, no numbers.
• No letters that get mixed up when spoken (if you have to spell it out, it is already long).
• Check whether the name is already someone else's trademark, on the INPI site (inpi.justica.gov.pt). Registering your own trademark there is optional and protects the name, but it is not needed to have a domain.

Where to register

The .pt ending is run by DNS.PT (www.dns.pt). You can register directly there or through a registration agent, which is a company that does it for you and usually bundles other services. Other endings, such as .com, are registered at international registrars.

There are several options of different kinds. For .pt, DNS.PT itself or an accredited registration agent (DNS.PT publishes the list; well-known European companies such as OVHcloud or Gandi register .pt). For .com and other endings, international registrars such as Namecheap or GoDaddy. Compare what they include (email, privacy of your details, help in your language) and the prices, which change and are on the Current state page. There is no "best" for everyone.

This is how it looks on 16 October 2026; your screen may differ.

The four rules for never losing it

1. You are the registrant (or your company is). The sole trader's or company's name and tax number. Never the agency that built the website, nor the nephew, nor the IT friend. They can help, but the account and the registrant are yours.
2. Auto-renewal on and a valid card. When the card expires, the domain expires soon after. Put a reminder in your calendar for the day the card runs out.
3. The registration's contact email is one you read and that is not on the domain itself. If it is, when the domain goes down, the warning goes down with it.
4. Two-step verification on the registrar account. Anyone who gets into your account can transfer your domain to another owner.

DNS in three lines

DNS is the domain's list of road signs. You will see three kinds of line:

• A or CNAME: says where the website is.
• MX: says where the email goes.
• TXT: stamps that prove the email is yours (we come back to it in the next lesson).

Whoever sets up the website or the email gives you the lines to paste. You copy them exactly, you do not invent them. And never delete lines you do not understand: ask first.