Domain name
What it is
The domain name is what your publics type, remember and print on a poster. It is registered with a registrar (an accredited reseller), for a renewable one-year period, under the responsibility of DNS Belgium for .be. Its settings, the DNS, say where the website and the mail point: that is how a new website is connected without changing the address.
What to know
- It is in the association's name, not a volunteer's nor a provider's: it is the first point of continuity
- It is renewed every year; forgetting it takes the website and emails down, and an expired domain can be bought by anyone
- .be is managed by DNS Belgium, the yearly price is in the range of a few dozen euros at most registrars
- One well-kept domain is enough; other extensions (.org, .brussels) can be reserved to avoid confusion, they then redirect to the main one
- The association's mail (info@, contact@) is carried by the same domain: changing domain also means changing email addresses
Choosing a name
Short, without a hyphen if possible, without accents, easy to dictate on the phone. The association's name as people say it, not its administrative acronym. If the exact name is taken, an added word ("asbl", the city) is better than an approximate spelling. Check availability on the DNS Belgium website before printing anything.
The domain and the mail
The association's email addresses (info@, contact@, chair@) live on the same domain as the website, but at a mail provider that may differ from the website host. Changing host does not touch the mail if the mail DNS settings are left in place; it is the first thing a serious provider checks before changing anything.
In Kern4Good
The programme keeps your current domain name and points it to the new website, with redirects from the old addresses so that nothing is lost. If you have none, we help you reserve one in the association's name, in an account the association has access to. The scoping of every website starts with this check: who owns the domain, where, and when it expires.
Further reading
Our domain name is in a former volunteer's name, what to do?
Ask them to transfer it to an account in the association's name. Registrars have a procedure for that, and DNS Belgium can help if the contact no longer answers. Do it before redoing the website.
Should we also take the .org or .com?
Not necessarily. One well-kept domain is enough; other extensions can be reserved to avoid confusion, they then redirect to the main one.
What happens if we forget to renew?
The website and emails go down at expiry. There is a grace period to recover the domain, then it becomes free again and anyone can register it. Enable automatic renewal and note the date.
Can we change domain name without losing search rankings?
Yes, with permanent redirects from every old address to the new one and a declaration of the change in Search Console. It is a website migration: it has to be prepared.