Buy your .earth domain today

A .earth domain is registered mostly by causes rather than by companies. Climate nonprofits, conservation groups, sustainability consultants, science communicators and outdoor brands make up most of what we found built out.

The word carries a position, which is unusual for an extension. Nobody registers one by accident, and a visitor reads the priority before the page loads.

It also travels well. Earth is understood in most languages without translation, which matters for a campaign that crosses borders.

No, a .earth domain is open to anyone, and no environmental credential is checked. There is no eligibility test and no local presence requirement.

Labels run from three to sixty-three characters using letters, numbers and hyphens. The extension has been in general availability for years, so most short single words are already held.

That openness is worth knowing before you assume the ending means something. It places you in a conversation rather than certifying anything about your practices.

A .earth domain does not carry a standing donation to environmental causes, and it is worth checking that before assuming otherwise. The registry runs no published contribution program tied to registrations.

There is a pledge in the terms you agree to. Registrants commit to using the name in a manner consistent with protecting the planet, and the registry undertakes not to use the extension against that purpose.

No mechanism sits behind that commitment. Nothing is verified at registration and no review process is described, so the clause reads as a statement of intent rather than a rule with teeth.

A .earth domain asks nothing of you, where a .eco domain requires a commitment you have to put on the record. That is the clearest difference between the two.

Registering a .eco name involves publishing a profile and making disclosures about your environmental activity, with an accountability process described behind it. .earth has no equivalent.

Which one is better depends on what you want the address to do. .eco can be pointed to as evidence, and .earth is a plainer, broader word that anyone can use.

A .earth domain names the planet and a .green domain names the practice. .earth suits a cause or a global outlook, and .green suits a product or a service being sold as sustainable.

Both are open with nothing to prove and both are widely retailed. Neither one certifies anything, so the page still has to carry your claims.

Say the whole address out loud before you pick. Something like reforest.earth reads as a mission, where reforest.green reads as a brand.

No, a .earth domain has to use Latin letters, numbers and hyphens, because the registry supports no internationalized domain names. That is a real limitation for a word meant to work everywhere.

It is a surprising gap given who runs the extension. The registry is based in Tokyo, and Japanese script is exactly the kind of label an internationalized table would cover.

If your audience reads a non-Latin script, plan for a transliteration. A romanized label with content in your own language is the workable route here.

A .earth domain is operated by a Japanese institute rather than by one of the large registry groups. Interlink Systems Innovation Institute K.K. holds the contract, and the extension is retailed through the usual registrars.

For a registrant almost nothing follows from that. Availability, pricing and renewal all work the way they do on any other open extension.

The one place it shows is support for non-Latin labels, covered above. A smaller operator has not built that support, where a larger one usually would.

Yes, a .earth domain can take over from the address you use now without rebuilding the site. Changing where a name points is a DNS change rather than a redesign.

Most causes start by forwarding. The .earth name redirects to the site they already run, which lets them print it on a banner or an annual report before committing.

If you promote it to primary, keep the old domain pointed at it. Grant applications, press mentions and directory listings take a long time to catch up.

A .earth address reads as purposeful to most people and less familiar than .com to some. The word is plain English and hard to misread, which is more than several newer endings manage.

What reassures a donor sits on the page. A registered charity number, published accounts, a named board and a clear statement of where money goes all do work no ending can do.

If it worries you, hold both. Register the .com if it is free and point it at the same site, so nobody who types by habit lands anywhere else.