Slovenia's .si extension is being registered worldwide as shorthand for 'super intelligence' since September 2026. Anyone can hold one, with no local presence. This guide covers what happened, how .si compares with .ai, the registry rules that matter and the risks to check before you buy.
Which Domain Extension Fits Your Type of Business
Written by Liam Campbell ·
The short answer
There is no single best domain extension – there is a best one for what you do. A law firm, a clinic, a software company and a restaurant are judged by different signals, and the extension is one of them. The table below matches each type of business to the extensions that fit it, says which ones have requirements before you can register, and links to the page of each. If none of it applies to you, .com is still the safe default and always will be.
These are recommendations, not rules: nothing stops a bakery from using .io. What follows is what tends to read as credible to the people you are trying to reach. Availability and requirements verified on 23 August 2026 against our own registration system.
📋 Table of Contents
1. The extension that fits your business
| Type of business | Extensions that fit | Why | Requirements |
|---|---|---|---|
| Legal and professional services | .law, .pro, .company | The extension itself states the profession; clients checking credentials read it as a signal | Yes for .law – credentials are verified |
| Health and care | .health, .care | Unambiguous in search results, where trust decides the click | Check the page – some health extensions ask for a licence |
| Software and startups | .io, .ai, .app, .dev, .tech | The industry reads them as native; investors and developers do not blink at them | None. .app and .dev require HTTPS |
| E-commerce | .store, .shop, .online | Says what the site is before anyone clicks; useful when the brand name is not known yet | None |
| Restaurants, hospitality, travel | .cafe, .tours, .travel | Local search rewards clarity, and these names are still available | None today for these three |
| Design, photography, creative | .design, .studio, .art | A portfolio at name.design reads as deliberate; a portfolio at a generic host does not | .art registrations go through an application step |
| Media and publishing | .news, .tv | Descriptive and short; .tv is a country extension used worldwide for video | None |
| Training and education | .academy, .edu | .academy is open to anyone; .edu carries institutional weight precisely because it is closed | Yes for .edu – accredited institutions only |
| A business serving one country | The country extension: .de, .fr, .es, .cl… | Local buyers trust and click their own extension more than any generic one | Often – around 80 country extensions ask for local presence |
| Anything else, or you are not sure | .com, .net, .org, .co | Universally understood, never needs explaining over the phone | None |
2. The three questions that actually decide it
Before comparing extensions, answer these. In most cases they settle it on their own.
- Do you sell in one country or everywhere? If your customers, your invoices and your delivery are in one country, the country extension usually beats a generic one: it is a local-relevance signal for search engines and a familiarity signal for buyers. If you sell across borders, a generic extension avoids looking foreign in every other market.
- Is the .com of your exact name available? If it is, and the price is normal, take it – it costs you nothing in credibility and saves years of explaining. If it is taken and the owner wants five figures, the choice is between a worse name in .com and your real name in another extension. The second is usually the better business decision (what to do when your domain is taken).
- Who has to trust you, and how much? A clinic, a law firm or a financial service is judged before the page loads. In those industries a restricted extension – one that had to verify something about you – is worth more than a clever one.
3. The ones you cannot simply buy
Some extensions verify something before letting you register, and that is exactly what makes them worth having:
- Professional extensions such as .law check credentials with the relevant authority.
- .edu is limited to accredited institutions; it is not a marketing choice.
- Application-based extensions such as .art go through a review step rather than instant registration.
- Country extensions with local presence rules – roughly 80 of them – require an address, a company or a local contact in the country. A trustee service is the legal way around it for most: see which country domains require local presence.
Each extension page states its requirement, so check it before you build a brand on a name you cannot register.
4. Check the renewal before you fall in love
Industry extensions are where first-year offers hide the most. Some of the ones in the table above renew at several times the price you pay to register them, and one of them is not a typing error:
- .cafe and .tours renew at roughly five to six times their first-year offer.
- .travel renews at about four times the first year.
- .inc costs around US$2,540 a year. It is a legitimate extension aimed at companies that want that exclusivity – just do not discover the price after choosing the name.
Verified 23 August 2026. The renewal price of every extension is on its own page, and the mechanics are explained in cheapest domain extensions: check the renewal price first.
5. What matters more than the extension
- The name itself. Short, sayable over the phone, spelled one way. A perfect extension does not rescue a name people mistype.
- Using it for email. An address at your own domain does more for credibility than the extension you chose (how to set it up).
- Consistency. The same name across the site, the invoices and the social profiles beats any single clever choice.
- Owning the obvious variants if the brand matters – at minimum the .com of your name if it is free, even if you use something else as your main address.
6. FAQs
Does the domain extension affect SEO?
Not directly. What affects results is relevance and trust: a country extension helps in that country, and an extension that matches what people searched for can lift the click-through rate. No extension ranks a site on its own.
Is a new extension less trustworthy than .com?
It depends on the audience. Developers, designers and startups treat .io, .dev and .design as normal. A general consumer audience recognises .com faster than anything else. Match the extension to who has to trust you.
Should I register several extensions of my name?
If the brand is worth protecting, register the ones a competitor or a copycat would use – usually the .com and your country extension. Registering twenty is rarely worth the renewals.
Can I change extension later?
Yes, and it is a normal move, but it costs you: redirects, updated links, email addresses to migrate and a period where search results point at the old address. Cheaper to decide once.
My country extension requires a local company. What now?
Either register through a trustee service, which is offered on most restricted country extensions, or use a generic extension and make the local presence obvious on the site. The full list of which countries require what is here.
Check what fits before you register. Every extension page on Register.Domains shows the price, the renewal and any requirement – start from domain search.
