What is a Domain Registration?

A domain name is essentially online real estate, and domain registration provides temporary ownership over that real estate. Domain registrations are leased to the registrant in yearly increments, usually between one and ten years, and allow the registrant to "build" on this property by offering services such as websites, email and FTP for personal, commercial, or public use. DynDNS.com offers a Domain Registration service for users who would like to purchase a domain name.

Delegation

In addition to providing ownership, domain registrations hold the nameserver delegation for a domain. Delegation assigns DNS resolution duties to nameservers, directing queries for the domain to its DNS provider. A domain requires both registration and DNS to function; a registered domain without DNS cannot tell people where to find web services, and a nameserver with DNS information about an unregistered domain has no authority or ability to resolve queries for that domain.

Despite being closely linked, DNS service and registration are not identical or interchangeable. In fact, DNS service and domain registration can be provided by separate entities. For example, if you have a domain registered with another company, you can still use our Custom DNS service by changing the delegation to use our nameservers instead of theirs.

Delegation changes can be performed at any time; however, depending on the TLD of your domain, the delegation may not immediately take effect. (Please see the Domain Information Chart for further information on common TLDs and their delegation change delays.) Furthermore, some cached queries may continue to go to the old DNS provider for up to four days after a delegation change. To minimize potential downtime during a delegation change, please see our Changing DNS Providers Without Downtime article.

Glue Records

Before a new nameserver can be used, a glue record needs to be created for the nameserver at the registry. Glue records provide information on a nameserver, such as the IP address and responsible registrar, and prevent a chicken-and-egg problem with DNS resolution: without a glue record, it would not be possible to initially locate a nameserver to ask it for information about itself and the domains it serves.

If you have third-party DNS for your domain (such as our Custom DNS service), you will not need to create glue records, as your DNS provider already has glue records for their nameservers. If you wish to provide DNS for your own domain using a DNS server application such as BIND, you can create glue records through your account's domain registration interface or by contacting your registrar to request glue records. You may also be interested in a Secondary DNS service to provide redundancy and stability for your domain's resolution.

Because glue records have high TTLs, changes to glue can take up to 48-96 hours to fully propagate, making it impractical or impossible to host DNS for a domain on a dynamic IP address.

Registry vs. Registrar

A domain name registry is the operator for a particular Top-Level Domain (TLD). For example, VeriSign is the registry operator of '.com' and '.net' domains, PIR is the registry operator of '.org', and NeuStar is the registry operator of '.us' and '.biz'.

A domain name registrar is a go-between for the registries and the end-user. Much like a retailer sells good from a wholesaler, a registrar sells domain registrations directly to the registrants, maintains information for the registrations such as nameserver delegation and WHOIS information (see below), makes changes to the registry on behalf of the registrants, and provides customer service and support. While a registry is usually governed by a single entity, many registrars exist to sell registrations to customers on their behalf, creating a competitive market.

WHOIS and Thick/Thin Registries

When a registrant creates a new domain, they must provide some information about the people or entities which will be responsible for the domain name, including the Owner, Administrative, Technical, and Billing contacts. This information is publicly available in the WHOIS database. You can view the WHOIS information for any domain using a number of online tools, including our own WHOIS Query Tool here.

Because WHOIS information is publicly available to any interested party, some registrants are concerned about privacy issues. If you wish to own a domain but do not wish to have your personal information available in WHOIS, we offer a privatized WHOIS service known as Secret Registration.

WHOIS information is stored in one of two ways, depending on the registry: Thick or Thin. Thick registries have a central database, which holds all WHOIS information on all domain registrations in that TLD, maintained by the registry itself; Thin registries keep the WHOIS information at the individual registrars, and do not have a central database of information. Whether WHOIS information is stored in a Thick or Thin model differs between registries; for example, '.com' and '.net' are Thin registries, while '.org' is a Thick registry.

Transfers

A registrant is not forced to remain with their initial registrar for life; they may transfer their registration to virtually any other registrar which provides service for that TLD. You can learn more information about domain transfers in our Domain Transfers article.

Expirations

If you own a domain and wish to continue using it, it is very important that your domain does not expire for any length of time. You can learn more about domain expiration and the risks and problems that occur in our Domain Expirations article.

Domain Information Chart †

TLD Delegation Delay Grace Period Redemption Period Pending Delete Authcode? Registry
.biz Instantaneous** 40 Days 30 Days Up to 7 Days EPP NeuStar
.ca 30 Days VeriSign
.cc Instantaneous 45 Days 30 Days Up to 5 Days EPP CIRA
*.cn Instantaneous 15 Days None Up to 15 Days EPP NeuStar
.com 15 Minutes 40 Days 30 Days Up to 7 Days EPP VeriSign
.cx Instantaneous None None None EPP CoCCA
.de Instantaneous None None One Day EPP DENIC
.eu 5 Updates a Day 2nd-to-last day of month 40 Days None EURid
.gs 24 Hours None None None EPP CoCCA
.info Instantaneous 40 Days 30 Days Up to 7 Days EPP Afilias (PIR)
.mobi Instantaneous 30 Days 30 Days Up to 5 Days EPP NeuStar (Sponsored)
.name Instantaneous 40 Days None Up to 5 Days EPP Global Name Registry
.net 15 Minutes 40 Days 30 Days Up to 7 Days EPP VeriSign
.org Instantaneous 40 Days 30 Days Up to 7 Days EPP PIR
.tv 15 Minutes** 45 Days 30 Days Up to 5 Days EPP VeriSign
*.uk 5 Minutes None 25th Day of Next Month None IPS Tag Nominet UK
.us Instantaneous 40 Days 30 Days** Up to 7 Days** EPP NeuStar

† Data accurate as of Dec. 23, 2008. Information is provided for general guidance, not service guarantee.
** Inferred based on registry, e.g. VeriSign operates .com, .com takes 15 minutes, therefore .tv and .cc likely take 15 minutes.