DOMAINS

• What is the Registration Authority?
• What is a .it extension?
• What does Registrar mean?
• What is a Maintainer?
• What does 'naming rules' mean ?
• Who can register a domain?
• What is a domain?
• Whom does a domain belong to?
• What are the DNS?
• How do I choose the right domain name for my business?
• During the purchase, I have to input some information. Who are Owner, Admin-c and Billing-c of a domain, and what is the difference between the two?
• What does Registry mean? And RNA?
• I renewed my domain .it. Why is it still in 'grace period' and why is its expiration date not updated in the whois?

What is the Registration Authority?

The RA is a national or international organisation responsible for establishing rules and procedures for the allocation of domain names, the management of the registers and of the primary nameserver for the different TLD.

What is a .it extension?

A .it domain is a domain with an Italian geographical extensions.
.it stands for Italy.

What does Registrar mean?

The Registrar is the organisation authorised by the Registry to intervene in the database of the relevant TLD (e.g. .com, .net etc.).

What is a Maintainer?

A Maintainer is an organisation submitting clients' requests for domain names to the competent Authority. It is the organisation that also stores the information and data regarding a domain name. It is the intermediary between the domain applicant and the Authority.

What does 'naming rules' mean ?

The naming rules are applicable regulations containing norms for the allocation of domain names in the different TLDs.

Who can register a domain?

The registration rules change according to the kind of extension you wish to register your domain in. In the Registration rules section you will find a list divided into the different available extensions.

What is a domain?

A domain is the name which uniquely identifies a person, company or organization on the Internet. For example, our domain is 'register.it'.

The domain is made up of two parts separated by a full stop. The first part is the real name, while the second is an extension that may indicate the type of activity or geographical area. For example: .it stands for Italy, .de for Germany, .com for commercial activities.

Whom does a domain belong to?

A domain name does not belong to anyone, but its management is allocated to the physical or juridical person under whose name the application for registration was submitted.

What are the DNS?

DNS means Domain Name Service and it is a specific code system that allows to transform a domain name into an IP numeric address: it is the mean through which it is possible to identify the machine that specific registered domain refers to on the Internet.

How do I choose the right domain name for my business?

Choosing a domain name is not as easy as it may seem.

Remember that your domain name represents your identity on the Internet, a sort of business card for the web and that once you have registered a name, you cannot change it, unless you buy a new one.

In general, we recommend that you register simple names that are both easy to remember and easy to type into the browser's navigation bar. The name you register should also be made of letters alone (no numbers) and its meaning should be as close as possible to the content of your site or of your activity.

If you intend to use your domain for work, avoid over-fantastic names.

If you intend to use the email mailboxes associated to your domain, the best format is:
name@lastname.it (.name) and thus the domain is www.lastname.it (.name).

These are some things you should keep in mind when choosing your domain name:

- you can only use alphanumerical characters from the English alphabet and the "-" (dash)

- you cannot begin or end in a "-" (dash), nor have it in third or fourth position

- an Italian citizen in possession of a fiscal code alone (codice fiscale) can register an unlimited number of .it .com, .org, .biz, .info, .net domains

- anyone with a VAT number (Partita IVA) can also register an unlimited number of .it .com, .org, .biz, .info, .net domains

During the purchase, I have to input some information. Who are Owner, Admin-c and Billing-c of a domain, and what is the difference between the two?

Billing means "invoice" and Billing-c (or Billing Contact) means "invoice contact". This is the person we issue all invoices to, the person who made the payment. Our client is, therefore, the Billing-c, and it is identified mainly by two codes, the userID (e.g. XXXX-EURO)and the password they use to access their control panel.

Owner is the owner of the domain. This is an important field for our resellers, because they purchase domains for their customers and they enter their customer contact information in the Owner area. If you are not a reseller, we recommend that you enter the same contact information you have entered in the Billing area.

Admin means Administrative contact and it is the person who manages the domain. This field is also important for resellers who want to manage the domain directly. If you are not a reseller, we recommend that you enter the same contact information you have entered in the Billing area.

What does Registry mean? And RNA?

RNA means Registry of the Assigned Names, that is, the database of the domain names registered under the different TLD and maintained by the competent RA.

I renewed my domain .it. Why is it still in 'grace period' and why is its expiration date not updated in the whois?

The ‘grace period’ status for .it domains is automatically set by the Italian Registration Authority for any domain on their expiration date.

According to the Nic.it's procedure, if the domain has been renewed or will be renewed on your Register.it account on time, Register.it will not ask to delete it, and it will be automatically renewed.

All domains are set on a ‘grace period’ status 15 days after their expiration date. If they are not cancelled by their Maintainer by that time, their expiration date is updated by the Registry at the end of the 15 days.