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Sloan the DEV Moderator
Sloan the DEV Moderator

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Advice on .ly domains.

This is an anonymous post sent in by a member who does not want their name disclosed. Please be thoughtful with your responses, as these are usually tough posts to write. Email sloan@dev.to if you'd like to leave an anonymous comment.

Does anyone have experience with .ly domain names? I'd love one for my personal site but have ran into some issues. So I am an American and .ly domains are owned by the country of Libya. That was the first red flag for me. The second is that there is no anonymous registration. The faq says:

"We don’t have this service included at the time being, but we are working to add it soon.
However, you do not have to supply a private address or phone number for the contact persons registered on the domain. It is sufficient to supply contact information for the organisation, as long as the contact person can be reached by email."

The domain name I have in mind would be perfect for my personal site but i'm wary of the no anonymous registration. Does anyone have any advice on what I can do to acquire a .ly domain name as safely as possible? Or should I completely avoid it? Thanks for your help.

Top comments (17)

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peter profile image
Peter Kim Frank

To briefly set the scene, there are Global Top Level Domains (gTLD) such as .com, .net, .org, .info, etc. And Country-Code Top Level Domains (ccTLD) such as .us, .de, .uk, .pr, .to, .ly, etc.

When you register a domain name, you typically do so through a "Registrar," which is a licensed entity that is able to interact with ICANN ("The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers"). For most domain extensions, you can do so through a well-known registrar such as Uniregistry, Moniker, Namecheap, etc.

However, some ccTLDs set their own rules and have their own registrar relationships. That seems to be the root of your question — is it worth registering a .ly domain given the potential uncertainty about their rules, safety, anonymity features, price, etc.

I really think that's a personal decision. You certainly can register it if you'd like — it appears that they welcome registrations by foreigners (so long as you follow some rules re: adult content). Some ccTLDs are strictly for local registration. And there are bigger companies that are using .ly domains: bit.ly being the most prominent off the top of my head.

But there might be some downsides and headaches:

  • At $75/year, it's pretty expensive
  • It doesn't appear any of the ultra-reputable registrars above support .ly
  • The lack of fully-private registration [1]

If you're willing to put up with the headaches and slight uncertainty above, go for it. But for a personal project, it might be a bit more of a hassle (and a bit more expensive) than would be optimal.

Hope that helps!

[1] - FWIW, to my knowledge, the rules surrounding "accurate contact information" are very rarely enforced. The most important aspect of the registration to get right would be ensuring that you control the admin email on file.

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jess profile image
Jess Lee

Well, I just learned a whole lot.

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charming profile image
Charming

Companies still using .ly domain.
Take a look at the sales history of the .ly domain at namebio
Check reg.ly they are an accredited registrar and operating from 3 different countries. the technical support is outstanding.

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ferkungamaboobo profile image
Doug R. Thomas, Esq.

I would just avoid anything other than your local ccTLD or .com for a personal site.

What I tell clients about any kind of cute domain name is that you're going to have to buy the .com anyway, because if someone hears the domain, they're not going to remember the ".ly" as a TLD. Among other reasons, this is why bit.ly redirects to bitly.com. (I give the same advice to groups that need a .org TLD -- get both the .com and redirect to the .org. I give the same advice to anyone with dashes in their URL or multi-word urls -- redirect from two-words.com to twowords.com or vice versa.)

Until I started really visiting here, I'd go to dev.com or devto.com, and still have had a hard time telling my team to check something out verbally.

Anonymous registration isn't, like, totally necessary, but my thinking on the gTLDs is that it's just not worth it and for "branding" you're in a stronger place to have a strong brand name and add the (local equivalent to the) .com.

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ariezsulistio profile image
Aries Sulistio
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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

@peter you wanna weigh in here?

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