Procedures to Buy a Domain Name in South Africa
What is a Domain Name?
A domain name is basically a string of text that maps to a numeric IP address, used to access a website from client software. In plain English, a domain name is the text that a user types into a browser window to reach a particular website. For instance, the domain name for Google is ‘google.com’.
The actual address of a website is a complex numerical IP address (e.g. 103.21.244.0), but thanks to DNS, users are able to enter human-friendly domain names and be routed to the websites they are looking for. This process is known as a DNS lookup.
What is a Subdomain?
A subdomain is a domain that’s part of a larger domain. For example, mail.google.com, www.google.com, and docs.google.com are all subdomains of the domain google.com. Domain owners can create subdomains to provide easy-to-remember addresses for web pages or services within their top-level domain.
How much does it cost to buy a domain in South Africa?
| TLD | Category | New Price | Transfer | Renewal | Grace Period | Redemption Period |
| co.za | Other | R 85.00
1 Year |
R 0.00
1 Year |
R 85.00
1 Year |
7 Days
(R 0.00) |
18 Days
(R 210.00) |
| africa | Geographic | R 85.00
1 Year |
R 85.00
1 Year |
R 85.00
1 Year |
9 Days
(R 0.00) |
20 Days
(R 1,325.00) |
| org.za | Other | R 85.00
1 Year |
R 0.00
1 Year |
R 85.00
1 Year |
7 Days
(R 0.00) |
18 Days
(R 210.00) |
| web.za | Other | R 85.00
1 Year |
R 0.00
1 Year |
R 85.00
1 Year |
7 Days
(R 0.00) |
18 Days
(R 210.00) |
| net.za | Other | R 85.00
1 Year |
R 0.00
1 Year |
R 85.00
1 Year |
7 Days
(R 0.00) |
18 Days
(R 210.00) |
| joburg | Geographic | R 85.00
1 Year |
R 85.00
1 Year |
R 85.00
1 Year |
30 Days
(R 0.00) |
30 Days
(R 1,500.00) |
| capetown | Geographic | R 85.00
1 Year |
R 85.00
1 Year |
R 85.00
1 Year |
30 Days
(R 0.00) |
30 Days
(R 1,500.00) |
| durban | Geographic | R 85.00
1 Year |
R 85.00
1 Year |
R 85.00
1 Year |
30 Days
(R 0.00) |
30 Days
(R 1,500.00) |
| com | Popular | R 215.00
1 Year |
R 215.00
1 Year |
R 215.00
1 Year |
30 Days
(R 0.00) |
30 Days
(R 4,750.00) |
| net | Popular | R 245.00
1 Year |
R 245.00
1 Year |
R 245.00
1 Year |
30 Days
(R 0.00) |
30 Days
(R 4,750.00) |
Who manages domain names?
Domain names are all managed by domain registries, which delegate the reservation of domain names to registrars. Anyone who wants to create a website can register a domain name with a registrar, and there are currently over 300 million registered domain names.
What’s the difference between a domain name and a URL?
Generally, a uniform resource locator (URL), sometimes called a web address, contains the domain name of a site as well as other information, including the transfer protocol and the path. For example, in the URL ‘https://cloudflare.com/learning/’, ‘cloudflare.com’ is the domain name, while ‘https’ is the protocol and ‘/learning/’ is the path to a specific page on the website.
