The web hosting industry in Dubai is one of the fastest growing industries in the Middle East. A few years ago, dedicated servers were the most sought about hosting solution. The dominance of cloud changed things however. Despite all the major changes, there’s still great demand for reliable hosting solutions in the dedicated server hosting Dubai sector. Some hosting providers offer their services in packages that can also include domain registration services. 

The domains market in Dubai is flooded with organizations providing cheap, low-cost domain names on top of their hosting solutions. People who want their websites up with a small investment often search for cheap domain names in the internet. But then there is a question of whether a cheap domain name can undermine the value of the business of the domain owner. In the long run, the decision may beget costly outcomes. 

However, if you must go for low-cost domain names to keep everything within your budget, here are a few pointers.

• Top level domains: If the domain name you prefer is a term highly searched for in the internet, the domain name can be quite costly. However, depending on the domain registrar, the price tag of this domain name may vary. There are many reliable organizations in the domain registration Dubai sector that can get you domain names of your choice at reasonably low costs.
  
• Second level domains: Some hosting providers provide the option of creating your website as a subset of their website. Your site can then appear after top level domain name of the hosting provider. 
  
• Eg: http://www.hostingprovider.com/yourwebsite
  
• Your website can also appear first, followed by the hosting provider’s top level domain. 
  
• Eg: http://www.yourwebsite.hostingprovider.com
  
• In both cases, you and the hosting provider share the same domain name owned by the hosting provider. Most ‘free domain name’ offers you may come across in the internet actually gives you this kind of domain names. 
  
• Present day standards however no longer considers second level domains acceptable, especially for businesses. Another thing to remember is that if a company offers you a free domain name, they would likely want you to subscribe to one of their hosting plans first. 
  
• Sale & Auctions: Some domain names previously owned by someone may appear for sale if the domain owner fails to renew the domain name subscription or wants to sell their website. Reliable domain registrars can keep you in the loop if your preferred domain name comes up for sale. 
  

Tips to remember

Here are a few tips from experts in the web hosting UAE industry to keep in mind when looking for low-cost options to purchase domain name.

• Keep domain names short and easy to remember.
  
• Shortlist your domain name preferences.
  
• Make sure the domain names have one major keyword relevant to your business in it.
  
• Go for the ‘.com’ extension for your domain name, if it’s available. Otherwise you can settle for ‘.org’ or your country-specific domain extension.
  
• Make sure the recurring cost of renewing your domain names is manageable.
  
• If it’s a low-cost domain name you are getting, make sure there’s no catch.
  
• Consider back-ordering domain names that are about to expire with the help of a reliable domain registrar.