Choosing a domain and hosting: a guide to .com.tr, TRABİS and servers.

A website’s address and home are the two items most companies think about least, yet they hurt the most when something goes wrong. The wrong domain and hosting choice can lead to slow pages, emails that never arrive, or even the address you have used for years ending up in someone else’s hands.

In this guide we explain the difference between a domain and hosting, how to choose a good domain, how .com.tr domains are obtained through TRABİS, why you should register your domain in your own name, and how to decide between options such as shared hosting, VPS and cloud.

When we start corporate website projects, one of the first questions we ask our clients is “whose name is your domain registered in?” Seeing how often the answer is “we don’t know” convinced us this article was needed.

The difference between a domain and hosting

Put simply, the domain is your site’s address and hosting is the building where your site’s files live. When a visitor types yourcompany.com.tr into the browser, DNS records tell it which server that address points to, and the site loads from that server.

• Domain: Rented annually and obtained through a registrar. Besides your site, it is also the basis of your corporate email addresses.
• Hosting: The server service on which your site’s files, database and often your email run. Paid monthly or annually.
• DNS: The set of records that connects the domain to your hosting, email server and other services. It is entirely possible to buy your domain and hosting from different companies.

Having your domain and hosting with the same company is convenient, but not required. In some cases keeping them separate even makes things easier when you want to switch hosting providers.

How do you choose a good domain?

Your domain will appear for years on your business cards, vehicles, invoices and email signature. So keep these principles in mind:

• Keep it short and easy to say: Choose a name you don’t have to spell out letter by letter on the phone.
• Avoid Turkish characters: Domains containing ç, ğ, ı, ö, ş, ü are technically possible but cause problems in email and sharing. Watch out especially for confusion between “ı” and “i”.
• Avoid hyphens and numbers: They get lost when said aloud and are hard to remember.
• Base it on your brand name: Keyword-stuffed domains (e.g. cheapest-furniture-istanbul) no longer give an SEO advantage, and they don’t inspire trust either.
• Consider close variations too: Registering both the .com.tr and .com extensions protects your brand against imitations and typos.

.com or .com.tr? Getting a .tr domain through TRABİS

Domains with the “.tr” extension are managed through TRABİS (the .tr Network Information System), operated by the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK). The most important change since TRABİS went live on 14 September 2022 is this: extensions such as .com.tr, .net.tr and .org.tr are now allocated without documentation on a “first come, first served” basis. .com.tr, which once required a trademark certificate or trade registry record, can now be obtained as easily as .com.

Applications are made not directly to TRABİS but through BTK-accredited registrars. The current list of registrars is published at trabis.gov.tr. Documentation is still required for extensions reserved for certain institutions and professions, such as .av.tr, .edu.tr, .gov.tr and .bel.tr. According to publicly available data, the number of active .tr domains reached around 1.3 million by the end of 2025.

For search engines, .com.tr naturally signals that you are targeting Türkiye. If you use .com, you send that signal through language, content and Search Console settings. In short, neither option is a problem for SEO; the real question is which market your brand speaks to.

Domain ownership and renewal: the most common mistake

The legal owner of a domain is the person or company entered as the “registrant” at registration. Domains bought under an agency’s or an employee’s personal account cause serious trouble when the relationship sours or that person leaves the company.

• Make your company the registrant: Even if your agency handles the process, the domain should be registered under your company’s name.
• Keep panel access yourself too: The password and contact email of the registrar account should be tied to a permanent company address.
• Turn on auto-renewal and extend the term: Renewing the domain for several years at a time reduces the risk of forgetting.
• Don’t miss reminder emails: By regulation, the registrar must warn the domain holder before expiry; but that warning is useless if it goes to an email address nobody uses anymore.

Hosting types: shared, VPS, cloud and managed servers

Hosting prices range from a few hundred lira to thousands; the difference usually lies in allocated resources, performance and who is responsible for what.

For a corporate brochure site, good-quality shared or managed hosting is usually enough. Systems with user logins, payments or heavy database work, however, need a VPS or cloud server. For example, in a residential complex management software like KATSİS the load rises sharply at the start of each month when residents pay their dues; for systems like this, infrastructure that can scale with demand is decisive.

8 criteria to check when choosing hosting

Instead of marketing phrases like “unlimited disk, unlimited traffic”, look at these concrete criteria:

• 1. Performance: SSD/NVMe disks, sufficient CPU and memory, current PHP or Node.js versions. Server response time directly determines your site’s speed (see site speed and Core Web Vitals).
• 2. Server location: If your visitors are in Türkiye, a data centre close to Türkiye or a CDN reduces latency.
• 3. Personal data: If the server is abroad, under KVKK this may mean personal data is being transferred abroad; address this in your privacy notice and contracts.
• 4. Automatic backups: Are daily backups taken, how many days are they kept, and is restoring them charged?
• 5. Free SSL: Support for auto-renewing certificates such as Let’s Encrypt is a basic expectation today.
• 6. Uptime commitment: An availability commitment such as 99.9 percent, and what happens in case of an outage, should be written into the contract.
• 7. Support: A 24/7 support team in your language with real technical knowledge makes a difference when problems hit at night.
• 8. Portability: You should be able to download your files and database in full at any time and move to another provider.

On the security side, keeping the server up to date, a firewall and malware scanning also matter. We cover these topics in detail in our article on website security and SSL.

Switching hosting or migrating your site: a seamless move

If your current hosting is slow, support is unresponsive or your site has grown, you may need to move. A well-planned migration goes so smoothly that visitors won’t notice:

• Step 1 — Take a full backup of the current site’s files and database; list your email accounts too.
• Step 2 — Set up the site on the new server and test it via a temporary address before changing DNS.
• Step 3 — Shorten the TTL of your DNS records a day before the move so the change propagates faster.
• Step 4 — Point DNS to the new server, and check that the SSL certificate has been issued and that forms and email work.
• Step 5 — Keep the old hosting active for a few more days; don’t shut it down until you are sure all traffic has moved to the new server.

If you are also changing your URL structure, don’t forget to set up permanent (301) redirects from old URLs to new ones. Otherwise, search rankings built up over years can disappear quickly.

Don’t forget corporate email and DNS settings

One of the most valuable services that comes with your domain is corporate email in the form name@yourcompany.com.tr. Decide whether to get email within your hosting package or from a separate corporate email service based on your number of users and storage needs.

Whichever route you choose, SPF, DKIM and DMARC records must be set up correctly in DNS so your emails don’t land in spam. Major email providers now require these authentication records from domains that send in bulk. If they are missing, even your most important proposal email may never reach the customer’s inbox.

Your domain is your digital title deed; you wouldn’t leave the deed in someone else’s name.

Frequently asked questions

Final word

The right domain and hosting choice means a short address that carries your brand, ownership registered to your company, auto-renewal, and a fast, backed-up server that fits your needs. Get these decisions right once and you won’t have to think about them for years.

In our website projects we also handle domain and hosting setup, DNS and email configuration, with all rights remaining yours. If you are considering a site from scratch, you can first read our corporate website guide or, to review your current infrastructure together, get in touch with us.