.cc Domain
A Short Domain With Global Reach
Register your .cc domain from just £25.49/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included with every domain.
What is a .cc domain?
The .cc domain is technically the country code for the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean. In practice, it's marketed globally as a general-purpose domain, often interpreted as "Commercial Company" or simply used because two identical letters are easy to remember. Registration is open worldwide with no restrictions, and it's managed by VeriSign. For brands wanting a short, clean TLD without geographic baggage, .cc is worth considering.
Who should register .cc?
International businesses wanting a short memorable domain, Chinese-market brands (where .cc is popular), and organisations seeking alternatives to .com.
Why choose .cc?
- Two identical letters for easy recall
- Open to worldwide registration
- Popular in Asian markets, especially China
- Managed by VeriSign (same as .com)
Who runs .cc, and since when
Registry data from the .cc delegation record held by IANA, which maintains the internet's root zone. Eligibility comes from the registry's own policy, and the prices are ours.
- Extension type
- Country-code (ccTLD)
- Registry operator
- eNIC Cocos (Keeling) Islands Pty. Ltd. d/b/a Island Internet Services
- The organisation that runs the extension
- In the root zone since
- 1997
- Delegated 13 October 1997
- Who can register
- No published eligibility rules; sold worldwide as a general-purpose extension
- Checked against the registry's own policy
- Our price
- £25.49 a year
- Ex VAT. Renews at the same price
- Transfer in
- £25.49
- Adds a year to whatever is left on the domain
The .cc domain outside the Cocos (Keeling) Islands
Say it out loud before you buy it. "Dot see see" is two identical syllables at the end of a sentence, and the people you say it to will write .co, ask you to spell it, or type .com by reflex. That is the single most useful fact about .cc and no registrar page mentions it, because it is the one thing that costs a customer a visit rather than costing them a fee.
On paper the extension is the country code for the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, an Australian external territory in the Indian Ocean. IANA records the manager as eNIC Cocos (Keeling) Islands Pty. Ltd., trading as Island Internet Services, delegated on 13 October 1997. Look at the contacts on that same record and the picture gets clearer: the administrative contact answers at a verisign.com address and the technical contact is VeriSign Global Registry Services. The registry is run by the company that runs .com and .net, and has been for most of the extension's life.
Google puts .cc on its published list of country codes it treats as generic, alongside .io, .co, .me and .tv. That matters in both directions. You will not get the local ranking help in Google UK that a .co.uk gets, and equally nobody is going to read your site as Australian territory content. The extension is geographically weightless, which is exactly what people who buy it want.
Where it earns its place: initials, a two or three letter brand, a short campaign address, or a name whose .com went in 2003 and is not coming back. Where it does not: anything a customer has to repeat down a phone line, and anything aimed at people who judge a site by its address.
Is .cc the right choice for you?
We would rather sell you the right extension once than the wrong one twice.
.cc works well if
- Your business is known by its initials and the two-letter ending keeps the whole address short enough to read at a glance.
- The .com has gone and the alternatives are a hyphen or three extra words. A clean .cc beats a padded .com for a name people mostly click rather than type.
- You want a link shortener, a campaign address or a redirect domain that stays out of the way.
- Your audience is international, so a national extension would narrow you rather than help you.
Look elsewhere if
- Customers hear your address more often than they see it. Two soft syllables get written down as .co or typed as .com, and you pay for that in lost visits, not in fees.
- You sell to UK customers who search locally. Google treats .cc as a generic extension, so it gives you none of the country signal a .co.uk does.
- You want the cheapest sensible address. A .cc costs more each year than a .co.uk while doing less for a UK audience.
Selling mainly to people who find you through Google UK? A .co.uk gives a country signal that .cc cannot, for less money. See .co.uk pricing.
.cc vs .com: which should you register?
These two share a registry operator, so the comparison is not about reliability. It is about what happens in the gap between somebody hearing your address and typing it.
.com wins on the default. It is what fingers type when the brain is not paying attention, which means a .cc holder is permanently one distracted visitor away from landing on somebody else's site. It also needs no explanation, ever. .cc wins on availability and length. Short names in ordinary categories have been gone from .com for two decades, and the alternative is usually a longer, worse .com rather than a better one.
If the matching .com is available and affordable, register both and point one at the other. That single step removes the mistyping problem completely and costs less than most people expect.
| .cc | .com | |
|---|---|---|
| Manager on record | eNIC Cocos (Keeling) Islands Pty. Ltd. | VeriSign |
| Registry operation | VeriSign Global Registry Services | VeriSign Global Registry Services |
| In the root zone since | 1997 | 1985 |
| How Google reads it | Country code treated as generic | Generic |
| Typed by mistake as | .co or .com | Nothing, it is the default |
.cc domain questions, answered
What people ask us before registering a .cc domain.
Can't find what you're looking for?
Ask us directlyYes, and no, depending on which question you are really asking. IANA lists it as the country-code top-level domain for the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, delegated in October 1997, so it is a ccTLD in the technical sense. It is sold and used worldwide with no connection to the territory, and Google places it on the list of country codes it treats as generic. For a buyer, the practical answer is that it behaves like a generic extension.
The two letters are the ISO country code for the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and everything else you will read is convention rather than definition. People have read it as commercial company, as creative commons, as content creator and as a doubling of an initial. None of those is an official meaning, and the registry has never needed one, because the value of the extension is that two identical letters are easy to remember on a page.
Some of them will, and you should plan for it rather than hope. Whoever holds the matching .com receives that traffic, and if the name is a going concern in another market you may be sending them customers. Register the .com alongside it if it is available and redirect one to the other. If it is not available, look hard at who holds it before you commit to the .cc.
It is neutral rather than bad. Google publishes a list of country codes it treats as generic and .cc is on it, so the extension carries no geographic signal in either direction. The practical consequence for a UK business is real: Google says a ccTLD gives a strong signal that a site is intended for a country, and .cc gives you none of that. If most of your customers search from the UK, a .co.uk is the better buy.
Included with Your .cc Domain
DNS Management
Full DNS zone editor to manage A, CNAME, MX, TXT, and all record types.
Email Forwarding
Set up professional email addresses and forward to any inbox.
Auto-Renewal
Never lose your domain with automatic renewal protection.
Free 10GB Mailbox
One 10GB mailbox (POP3/IMAP) included with every domain, on any TLD.
Other Geographic Domains Extensions
Register your .cc domain today
Secure your .cc domain from just £25.49/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included.
