I'm looking to purchase a .IT domain (specifically *firstnamelastname.it*) for my portfolio since I live in Italy and primarily work with Italian companies, though I do have some American clients. I've seen various prices, like €20/year on Squarespace and only €4 for the first year with Aruba, which goes up to €11 afterwards. This price difference is notable, but I'm unsure about which provider is better or if it even matters. If a registrar like Aruba were to close down, would I lose my domain? Also, how much does the quality of the domain depend on the service quality? Should I consider going for a .com domain instead?
7 Answers
Choosing a registrar mostly impacts the management interface and the level of support you get. If a company shuts down, transferring your domain is always an option. Also, having a .IT can help you with local SEO and build trust with Italian clients, which is a plus for your portfolio work.
Just a heads up, registrars only facilitate the registration with the official .IT registry—they don’t own your domain. If one closes, transferring to another one is typically straightforward. Price differences often come from added features like email forwarding or privacy policies. Given that most of your clientele is local, a .IT is a good choice, and you could always secure a .com later for international clients.
In general, many registrars don't vary too much in terms of quality. Places like Cloudflare and Porkbun might offer the lowest prices, but if you're paying more, it's often for profit margins rather than actual differences in service. If your registrar goes out of business, you won't lose your domain outright, you can transfer it to another registrar as long as it hasn’t expired.
I've tried different options like Aruba and Netsons for domain registration. I found Netsons to have the best balance of price and performance: €9.26 for the domain, or €35.43 with hosting. Their customer support really helped when I needed assistance.
I registered with 101domains.com, but since I'm not an Italian resident, I had to pay an additional intermediary fee, which might be something to look into if you're considering that option.
You might want to check out Namecheap or Hostinger; they often have reasonable prices and are quite popular among users for good service.
I've been using Porkbun for my domains and they offer good prices along with free WHOIS privacy feature. It's worth checking out, but I haven't seen them offer .IT domains.
I looked for my lastnamefirstname.it and couldn't find it either—just the .it.com extension.
But I checked, and neither Cloudflare nor Porkbun seem to have .IT domains.