How to choose a domain name

The rules that actually matter

Only three, and all of them are about how the name sounds over the phone.

1. It has to be dictatable without explanation. The test: call a friend and say the name. If you have to add "with a hyphen", "double K", or "like the word but spelled differently" — the name doesn't work.

2. Shorter is better. Not because Google likes it (it doesn't care), but because every character is another chance to mistype.

3. It must not be spellable two ways. Bulgarian words in Latin script are a minefield: is шишков written shishkov, sishkov, or šiškov? If your name contains letters with contested transliterations, pick one spelling and check it doesn't read awkwardly.

What to avoid

• Hyphens. Nobody says them out loud. "Dot B G, hyphen, repairs" sounds like a password, not an address. If the only free name has a hyphen, invent a different name.
• Digits. Same problem: "four" or "4"? People try both and half of them land nowhere.
• Doubled letters at word boundaries. autoobsluzhvane.bg — how many os was that?
• Fashionable words that will date. company-2026.bg is already awkward by January.
• A name tied to one city or one service, if you plan to grow. aircon-sofia.bg is hard to turn into a national brand.
• Someone else's trademark. apple-repairs.bg is a dispute you lose.

.bg or .com?

It isn't a religion. Here's the real difference.

Take .bg if: your customers are all in Bulgaria, you sell to businesses, or trust is a big part of the sale. A .bg address says "this is a local company, not a foreign site". For an accountant, lawyer, builder or repair shop, that's an advantage.

Take .com if: you have or want customers outside the country, or your name is in Latin script and sounds international.

Take both if you can. One redirects to the other. Your plan includes free .com and .bg registration for the first year, so for most people this isn't a decision — it's just "yes".

.eu makes sense only if you genuinely sell across several EU countries. .net and .org buy you nothing in Bulgaria. The new endings (.shop, .online, .bio) look modern and nobody remembers them — take them as extras only.

The .bg specifics nobody explains properly

.bg doesn't register like .com. The registry requires you personally to identify yourself, rather than the registrar simply pressing a button. There are two paths:

The fast one — with a qualified electronic signature. You sign the application with a QES (B-Trust, Evrotrust). The registry pulls your company details straight from the Commercial Register. The domain is live within hours. If you're a registered company you almost certainly have a QES already — you'd need one for tax filings. Evrotrust is a free phone app.

The slow one — on paper. You print, sign, and post the documents to the registry. Seven working days to two weeks.

One practical consequence: don't buy .bg from a foreign registrar. German, Czech and Dutch resellers have no fast path — for them every .bg is manual work, which is why it costs EUR 88–104 per year instead of EUR 24–33 through a Bulgarian registrar. You pay 3–4× more to wait 20× longer.

Three things frequently claimed about .bg that are wrong:

• "You need a Bulgarian trademark." You don't. "Protected" registration is an option that only helps you in a future dispute, and it costs exactly the same as an ordinary one.
• "You have to be a Bulgarian company." No. Bulgarian and EU companies and citizens qualify, as do permanent residents and foreign companies with a registered Bulgarian branch.
• "Two-letter domains are cheap." Two-letter names are sold at sealed-bid auction with a EUR 5,000 opening price. Names must be 3 to 63 characters.

Expiry: with .bg there's no second chance

This is the most important sentence in the article.

With .com, an expired domain goes through a redemption period — you pay a penalty and get it back. With .bg there is no such period. The schedule is:

• Day 7 after expiry — the domain stops working.
• Up to day 30 — it can still be renewed.
• Day 40 — deleted. Gone. Anyone can take it.

If your domain is with us, we watch the date and chase you. If it's elsewhere, set a calendar reminder and check which mailbox the registrar's notices go to. Losing a domain because a warning email went to an address you no longer read is one of the most expensive small mistakes in business.

Cyrillic (.бг)?

Technically you can. Practically — not as your main address, not yet. It behaves inconsistently in email clients, older systems and link handling. Take it as an extra that redirects to your main domain.

Before you buy — four checks

1. Is it free? Check with our search or at register.bg.
2. Is the name free elsewhere? Check Facebook and Instagram. A domain with no matching handle is a small but permanent annoyance.
3. Is it somebody's trademark? A quick look in the Bulgarian Patent Office register. Cheaper now than after a lawyer's letter.
4. Say it out loud five times. If it still sounds right, buy it.

If you already have a domain you don't like

Don't throw it away. Buy the new one, make it primary, and point the old one at it. Existing links keep working and you don't lose what Google already knows about you.

Talk to us before changing anything — this is one of the few cases where the order of operations genuinely matters.