The choice of a domain, the name of your website, and further work on its trustworthiness and authority determine how high positions it will occupy in search results, and, accordingly, how much traffic it will bring to your site.
In this article, we’ll look at the different types of domains, what terms apply to each type, and most importantly, we’ll determine which domains are worth registering in which cases to get more visitors and increase conversions.

Expired domains (drop domains)

Expired domains are those domain names that have become available for new registrations after the previous owner failed to pay. The business may have closed, the website may have been abandoned, the site owner or developer may have failed to pay the renewal invoice on time, or for some reason simply did not want to do so. There can be many reasons for this.

It should be noted that overdue domains are not released immediately after non-payment.

• First, upon completion of the paid period, the domain goes into Hold status – it lasts 29-40 days, depending on the domain zone and registrar.
• If the payment is not received, the domain enters the so-called “Redemption Period“, when it can still be returned, but at an increased price (usually 5-10 times higher). Not all domains fall into the redemption period, for example, .NET.UA does not. The RedemptionPeriod lasts 30 days.
• Even if the domain owners have not redeemed it during this time, it will go into the “Pending delete” status, which is 5 days after which it will again become free for registration by new owners. During this period, it is no longer possible to renew the domain name.

Who can register expired domains?

Registration of drop domains is primarily suitable for those who want to bring their website to the top as
quickly as possible, but at the same time legally, without using aggressive promotion methods. Also, expired domains are often used for satellite sites to collect thematic traffic and redirect it to the main site or for PBN, a network of sites with a history that also link to the main resource.
However, it’s worth noting that domains with a history can be both useful and dangerous from an SEO perspective.

Over the course of several years, a domain can acquire a lot of backlinks, traffic, a bunch of keywords in the content, visibility, and reputation among users and search engines. Therefore, bringing an old domain to the top of the SERPs is always a much easier process than promoting a new one from scratch.

SEO specialists are on the hunt for good expired domains. After all, the purchased site can be glued to your own through a 301 redirect, and then the entire link mass will go from the drop to the existing resource, the SEO of which needs to be boosted. For this purpose, domain backorders are used in particular.

The idea is that you submit an application to track the status of a desired busy domain, and when it becomes available for registration, the service’s script automatically intercepts it and registers it for you. Not so long ago, HostPro, a Ukrainian host and domain registrar, started offering this service.

But there is another side to the story with expired domains. If the former site that was hosted on this drop-domain has been sanctioned by search engines, it will be much harder to bring it to the top.

So before you buy a domain with a history, be sure to check its presence in the domain database under filters and sanctions. You can do this through the Norton Safe Web and Host-Tracker services. There’s also an old-fashioned method: enter site: domain in the search bar and see the number of results. If there are a lot of them, it means that it is not under filters.

Advantages of drop domains

• websites on expired domains are faster and cheaper to promote to the top of the SERPs, as they already have relevant link mass, authority, and a high level of trust among search engines and users;
• They are likely to already have unique content on them, so the website is already ranking for a certain pool of keywords.

Regional domains

Regional domains, or geographic domains, are a term used for top-level domains that denote cities and regions, not only Ukrainian ones.

Examples of regional domains: .KYIV.UA (Ukraine), .BEDZIN.PL (Poland), .AMSTERDAM (Netherlands).

Who can register regional domains?

Regional domains are usually registered for local and small businesses of any kind: smoked cheese production from sheep’s milk, river rafting, hostels, restaurants, local car service, etc.

Also, regional domains are a great choice for businesses that have offices in different regions of the country and want to gain local trust in each of them.

Advantages of regional domains:

• it is easy to optimize your website for local SEO;
• customers understand where the company is located geographically, which is additionally displayed in Google MyBusiness and makes it even more trustworthy for the local audience.
• there are quite capacious and concise regional domain zones, for example: .IF.UA (for Ivano-Frankivsk and the region), .OD.UA (for Odesa and the region), .CK.UA (for Cherkasy and the region).

National domains

National or territorial domains (sometimes also called regional domains) indicate to search engines and users in which region the site operates (.UA – Ukraine, .US – United States, .IT – Italy, .EU – European Union). This way, customers can even intuitively understand that goods from this site can be delivered to their city.

It is worth noting that national domains often have certain restrictions for registration. For example, to register a domain in the .ua zone, you must have a registered trademark with an identical domain name, and to get a name in the .it zone, for example, you must be a resident of Italy, the European Union, or the Schengen zone (Switzerland, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway).

Who can register national domains?

Anyone can register a domain in the national .UA zone, only confirmed companies and organizations with a registered trademark can.

Advantages of national domains:

• Google automatically matches a domain to a location. For example, .FR is localized to France, .UA to Ukraine, .UK to the UK, etc;
• due to the restrictions on registration of free domains in such zones more than in .COM or .COM.UA, for example.
• indicate to search engines which region the site is targeted for, so if there are no other problems with optimization, it can have a very positive impact on local SEO;
• They inspire confidence among the local target audience by demonstrating that the business is localized in their region or has representative offices there, and that the company meets certain requirements that were set forth during registration.

Thematic domains

Topical domains (newGTLDs) are the newest domain zones in the history of the global web space that do not belong to specific countries or regions but are created to demonstrate the theme of a website.

As a rule, these are zones written in Latin, and the variety of such domains is as wide as the wide range of website topics – from gaming (.GAME, .GAMES) to floristry (.FLORIST, .GARDEN, .BIO), from financial websites (.FINANCIAL, .ACCOUNTANT, .BARGAINS) to news resources (.NEWS, .TODAY).

Who can register thematic domains?

Thematic zones can be defined as highly customized and as universal as possible. They are suitable for virtually any business website, whether local or represented in several regions. Information resources and non-profit organizations can also easily make themselves known with a thematic domain.

Advantages of thematic domains:

• clearly outline the subject matter of the site, which makes it easier for users to navigate;
• associate your brand with a specific type of activity;
• allow you to visually stand out among hundreds of identical .COM, .UA, .NET, etc;
• attract the most targeted audience, because if a user is looking for a website with promotional codes, the .COUPONS domain, for example, will lead them to the most appropriate site;
• In some cases, such domains can be considered as keywords, so they can also improve SEO and website visibility;
• have no registration restrictions, unlike national domains, for example.

Cyrillic domains

Cyrillic domains (IDNs, Internationalized Domain Names) are domain names written in Cyrillic rather than the usual Latin alphabet and are aimed at an audience that uses Cyrillic characters. To make them understandable to the system, there is Punycode, a coding method that converts Cyrillic text into Latin. That is, in fact, the domain “towel.ukr” exists only in the Latin encoding format “xn--h1aehlp4a.xn--j1amh”. And the browser shows it to you in Cyrillic.

Examples of Cyrillic zones and their Punycode:

• .ukr – .xn--j1amh
• .site – .xn--80asehdb
• .online – .xn--80aswg

Who can register Cyrillic domains?

Website names in Cyrillic have one significant drawback: you can’t create a nice domain email for them. Your corporate email will look a bit spammy – “@xn-d1acufc.xn-j1amh” rather than “@domain.ukr”.

But if, for example, you have a landing page, blog, non-profit organization, or the appearance of your email and copied links is simply not important to you, a Cyrillic domain will be a very good choice.

Cyrillic domains are also often used for mirror sites: they buy the same domain in parallel, but in a Latin zone, and glue the two domains and all links together with a 301 redirect.

Advantages of Cyrillic domains:

• are easy to reproduce for non-English speakers, are easy to listen to, easy to remember, and most importantly, do not force you to switch keyboard layouts;
• you can grab a “fat” domain with a Cyrillic keyword, which, according to some SEO experts, will positively contribute to the promotion of your site in the search engine;
• Today, a website on a Cyrillic domain is promoted in the same way as on a Latin domain, so there will be no special problems with this;
• a lot of free domain zones. For example, you have long wanted to register an original website name, but the domain is already taken. In such cases, Cyrillic alternatives can save the day, as they still have many unoccupied domain names. .

Mirror domains

Mirror domains is a term that has different meanings in the Ukrainian and Western web space. Mirror domains on the Ukrainian Internet are groups of two or three regional Ukrainian domain zones of the .KYIV.UA – .KIEV.UA type. They are used to designate websites of the same city and region, but have different spellings due to differences in Ukrainian and Russian transliteration or abbreviations.

It should be noted that in some regional zones with Russian transliteration, new registrations have already been suspended. These are, in particular, .CHERNIGOV.UA, .CHERNOVTSY.UA, .KHMELNITSKIY.UA, .ROVNO.UA, DNEPROPETROVSK.UA and .DNIPROPETROVSK.UA.

Examples of mirrored domain zones
	.KYIV.UA	.KIEV.UA
	.VINNYTSIA.UA	.VINNICA.UA
	.RIVNE.UA	.ROVNO.UA
.MK.UA	.MYKOLAIV.UA	.NIKOLAEV.UA
.OD.UA	.ODESA.UA	.ODESSA.UA

If we consider the term mirror domains globally, it means different domains with a common IP address. In other words, they are simply alternative domains for websites with the same (though not always identical) content. For example, if you go to amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, and amazon.de, you will be taken to the same Amazon website.

This practice is used by companies that want to prevent competitors from buying their domain, but in a different zone and setting up a redirect to their website.

Note that there is also such a thing as a “website mirror” (spoiler alert – this is not the same as mirror domains). This is a complete copy of a website that is simply hosted on another server. Website mirrors can be used for data backup, local deployment, or to provide faster access to content for users from different countries.

Who can register mirror domains?

In Ukrainian practice, it works like this. When you register one of the mirror domains, for example, example.kiev.ua, the domain example.kyiv.ua is automatically reserved for you as the owner of the first domain. Whether you register it or not depends only on your desire and budget, because then you will have to pay for the renewal of two domains at the same time. However, it is guaranteed that no one else will be able to register your domain in the mirror zone.

And here’s another tip: not all shortened versions of domain zones are mirrored, for example, the .OD.UA – .ODESA.UA – .ODESSA.UA group are mirrored domains, but .VINNYTSIA.UA and VN.UA are not, and if you register one of them, the other will no longer be automatically reserved for you. So, in theory, competitors will be able to buy one of these free domains and advertise on it.

You can find the full list of mirror domains here.

Premium domains

Premium domains are web addresses that are considered more valuable than regular domains and usually consist of several characters. They are easy to remember and enter in a search. The list of premium domains is determined by the administrator of the domain zone in which they are served.

These are usually international keyword names relevant to certain industries and are much more expensive than other domains in the same domain zone. For example, a one-year registration of testovyi.com will cost $19.75, while cars.com will cost $872 million.

Such domains can be sold at an inflated price even right from the first year of registration, or they can become premium domains later, after the brand or website has been promoted.

Who can register premium domains?

They are usually bought through domain markets or through specialized brokers, as they can reach prices of hundreds to millions of dollars, depending on the value and demand.

Premium domains are considered a strategic investment for companies and individuals. They are often purchased for the purpose of further resale. After all, any short domain may someday increase in value a hundred times or even more.

Advantages of premium domains:

• the brevity and conciseness of premium domains guarantees brand recognition, as they are easy to remember, reproduce, and associate with the company’s name;
• is a source of direct organic traffic, as users enter the domain directly in their browsers;
• Often, premium domains that have already been used are pumped up in terms of SEO so much that they occupy high positions in the search results by themselves;
• premium domains go beyond a purely technical function – they psychologically influence the user’s perception, inspiring trust and increasing the credibility of your brand;
• They can be purchased at a lower price and then resold at auction or directly to a company that is interested in them for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Promotional domains

Ukrainian, and mostly foreign, domain zone registrars often make discounts on domains or give them as a gift to the hosting plan. HostPro, for example, gives you a free .COM.UA domain if you order any hosting plan for 12 months or more. They do this primarily for the convenience of the client – it is much more convenient to manage interrelated domain and hosting services from one account. In other words, you can actually get a domain for free.

However, if you want to choose a zone for your website other than the one offered for hosting, but your hosting and domain name budgets are small, you can choose one of the promotional offers. Domains on offer are mostly international thematic domains, such as .PICS, .VIP, .FUN, .PRO, etc. They can be registered for just a few dollars a year.

In addition, in order to popularize our regional zones in the correct Ukrainian transliteration, domestic registrars often launch promotions for the same .KYIV.UA, for example. At Hostpro, you can buy a domain in the .KYIV.UA zone for just 99 UAH until July 31, 2024.

Who can register promotional domains?

Registration of top names at an affordable price is something that startups, test dev sites, non-budget organizations, and student websites for IT courses often lack.

Advantages of promotional domains:

• a great opportunity to register thematic domains, which are usually quite expensive, at the lowest possible price;
• include virtually all the advantages of thematic or regional domains.

In conclusion.

Your domain name is an often underestimated but, as practice shows, very important detail in the process of creating and promoting a website. If it’s long and incomprehensible, doesn’t match your brand name, or at least isn’t associated with the site’s subject matter, the resource may seem unprofessional or even spammy.

At the same time, a well-thought-out domain name can boost your rankings in search engine results and give your audience a clear idea of what to expect when they visit your site.

You can register domains of all types with the domain registrar and hosting provider HostPro. Transferring a website from a previous provider is free.