Think of your domain name as a street address for your website. Without a domain name, you’d have to tell customers to visit your site at an IP-based url, such as 123.123.123.123/~yourwebsite, instead of yourwebsite.com. Not very memorable, right?

To be successful on the web, you need to invest in a domain name to ensure your site has a level of professionalism, appropriate branding, and overall awesomeness.

A domain is the actual name people will use to navigate to your website. Web hosting is what powers the storage/back-end of your website to make it functional. You may order a domain without web hosting (some people hold them as investments, others redirect to existing websites) but you may not purchase web hosting without a domain.

Absolutely! If you have already registered your domain with another provider, you may use the form above to “transfer” it from them over to us. Don’t worry if it’s not up for renewal, you won’t lose any time you’ve already paid for, most domains (i.e. .com, .net, .org) actually get an additional year free once transferred.

In the earlier days of the Internet you were basically limited to three TLDs; .com (Commercial), .net (Network), and .org (Organization). Over the last decade+ there are now hundreds of TLDs (i.e. .biz, .us, .dev, .xyz, etc.) giving you many more options to choose from. While .com is (and always will be) the most popular, you are welcome to search for the TLD/gTLD that works best for you.

First, you have to search and see if your domain is available. If it is, you can take ownership of the name by registering it, which includes a yearly renewal fee (i.e. $12.98/year for .com). Failure to pay this renewal fee makes the domain available for registration again.

Some highly sought domains have already been registered by investors or other organizations and they make them available on the “aftermarket.” Domains that show as premium are still available, but most of the time a much higher rate than an original registration.

Yes! You can register as many domains as you wish for your website, but only one may actually serve the website. For example, ButumHost.com is our primary domain, but we own many other domains that redirect to our website.

If you have an existing email account (i.e. at gmail.com) you may register a domain and purchase “email forwarding” to give you the ability to forward emails from @yourdomain.com to your gmail.com account. If you’d prefer to have a separate email account for your domain, these are available with all our web hosting packages.

Unfortunately all domain registrations are final upon payment and cannot be changed. Therefore it’s very important when registering a domain to double check the spelling. However, you do not have any obligation to continue renewing the domain each year, you can let it expire once the first year is up.

Simply enter a phrase (with or without a TLD) and click search. Our domain search engine will then immediately show available domains and provide a number of suggestions to help you find the perfect domain for your business.

Yes. Domains may include letters, numbers, and hyphens (-).

To put it simply: yes, yes, and yes.

To put it a little less simply: When your domain is registered, you’re required to maintain a publicly viewable WHOIS database that displays all your contact details — including home address and phone number. This puts you at risk of spam and identity theft.

Luckily, you can keep your info hidden from the public eye by opting to use ButumHost’s Domain Privacy Protection. Interested parties will still be able to contact you if they so please, but your identity will remain anonymous.