Getting a .id (Indonesian) Domain Extension – Why Do It and the Big Challenge?

Indonesia is growing economically. And it’s doing it fast. Deutsche Bank called the country a “rising economic powerhouse” in April 2024 amid its gross domestic product rocketing up to $1 trillion and it’s quickly becoming a major player in the Indo-Pacific.

Why should that matter to you?

This strengthening economy means the pieces are in place to make the expansion of your web-based business into Indonesia not just viable, but a likely priority. And it’s just one of the reasons why landing a .id domain extension should be on your agenda.

Even More Reasons to Get a .id Extension

If Indonesia’s booming economy isn’t enough to convince you that you need a .id extension, here are more reasons to get one.

Reason 1 – Appeal to The Indonesian National Identity

Bhinneka Tunggal Ika. Translated, that means “Unity in Diversity” and it’s Indonesia’s national motto. What it means is that Indonesia is willing to welcome diverse ideas (business and otherwise) into the country but still maintains a strong sense of national pride in everything that it does.

In the realm of domain extensions, that combination of acceptance and national pride evolves into more trust toward companies that commit to ingratiating themselves into Indonesian culture. Think about what that means in terms of having a generic top-level domain (such as .com) versus a .id domain. The latter is always the better choice because it shows that you’ve built a website specifically for a country that wants to welcome you into its national fold. You become part of that unified identity and your business reaps the benefits. If you need any more proof that a .id extension is good for your business, consider this:

The .id extension is preferred by 86% of people in Indonesia.

Reason 2 – You Save Money

Let’s say that you don’t even have a website right now. Or you do but you’ve already run into the problem that’s starting to become more prevalent with generic top-level domains like .com:

It’s getting harder to find the right domain name to go with the extension.

That doesn’t mean you have no ideas for your domain name. You do. The problem is that they’ve already been snapped up, leaving you to trawl through the leftovers to come up with a website name. That’s less of a problem in Indonesia as many of the names that might either be unavailable or come at a massive cost with generic extensions are both available and cheaper with the .id domain extension.

Reason 3 – .id Is Great for Local SEO

Another issue that comes with generic domain extensions is that they’re not great for local SEO. They’re not designed to be – their generic nature means they’re trying to appeal to everything and everybody all at once.

Your .id extension carries local flavor both in terms of the cultural identity we mentioned earlier and when it comes to how search engines rank your website. Google, Bing, Yahoo, Baidu, and every other major search engine you can think of has an Indonesian variant. Those variants rank Indonesian websites – .i.e., those with the .id extension – better than they rank generic sites. You know what that means for your business. Better rankings lead to more visitors, translating into more customers.

So…What’s the Big Challenge with .id Domain Extensions?

The big challenge with Indonesian domain extensions is that there are some you can’t register unless you meet certain criteria.

There’s good news here too. The .id, .my.id, .biz.id, and .web.id are all registerable by anybody no matter where they are in the world. If you’re happy to use one of those extensions – and many are – then there’s no need to worry.

Challenges arise when you try to register a .co.id extension, which is a business-focused extension and thus desirable if you want to do business in Indonesia. For that extension, you need to have a company that’s incorporated in the country or at least holds a trademark (or has applied for one) in the country. You also need to showcase that you have a local presence in Indonesia.

The odds are that you don’t.

To overcome this challenge, use a registrar that offers trustee services as part of their package. Trustees are essentially your proxies because they maintain physical businesses and premises in Indonesia used on your behalf to secure your .co.id extension.