.mobi Domain
The Mobile-First Domain
Register your .mobi domain from just £33.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included with every domain.
What is a .mobi domain?
The .mobi domain was created when mobile internet was still a novelty. While responsive design has made mobile-specific sites less common, .mobi retains value for mobile app landing pages, mobile-first businesses, and companies whose primary audience is on their phones. It's short, it's recognisable, and it still signals a mobile-optimised experience.
Who should register .mobi?
Mobile app developers, mobile-first businesses, SMS marketing platforms, and mobile commerce providers.
Why choose .mobi?
- Recognised mobile-first signal
- Good for app landing pages
- Short and memorable
- Works well on mobile devices themselves
Who runs .mobi, and since when
Registry data from the .mobi 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
- Generic (gTLD)
- Registry operator
- Identity Digital Limited
- The organisation that runs the extension
- In the root zone since
- 2005
- Delegated 17 October 2005
- Who can register
- Open to anyone worldwide; the original mobile-site requirements no longer apply
- Checked against the registry's own policy
- Our price
- £33.99 a year
- Ex VAT. Renews at the same price
The .mobi rules that made it famous are gone
.mobi is the one extension in this group whose rules have changed out of recognition, and most of what is written about it online still describes the old ones. It arrived in October 2005 as a sponsored top-level domain, delegated to dotMobi, and sponsorship meant something specific. The 2005 registry agreement required the operator to set registration policies conforming to a charter, and to establish procedures for enforcing the charter restrictions. Holding a .mobi came with obligations about the site behind it.
That is over. ICANN replaced the contract on 30 March 2017 with its standard base agreement, and its own records now list the agreement type as base and non-sponsored. No sponsor, no charter, no requirement that a .mobi site be built for phones. Identity Digital operates it today, anyone may register one, and nothing about the site is checked.
Which leaves an awkward position. The extension's entire proposition was that it promised something, and it no longer promises anything. Meanwhile the problem it was built for went away on its own: a separate mobile site on a separate address was the 2005 answer, and responsive design replaced it.
Where it still makes sense: you already own one and other sites link to it, or you are printing an address on something typed with a thumb, where five characters after the dot and no hyphens is worth having. What we would not do is buy a .mobi in 2026 as the main address for a new business. At £33.99 a year it costs over three times a .co.uk to signal a distinction the web stopped making.
Google recommends Responsive Web Design because it's the easiest design pattern to implement and maintain.
What that means if you are buying one
One site, one address, one set of HTML. That is the pattern Google names first, and it removes the reason a separate mobile domain existed at all. If you already hold a .mobi, point it at your main site with a permanent redirect rather than maintaining a second version of your pages. Two addresses serving the same content is work nobody needs to do now.
Is .mobi the right choice for you?
We would rather sell you the right extension once than the wrong one twice.
.mobi works well if
- You already hold the .mobi and other sites link to it. Keeping it and redirecting costs less than losing those links.
- You are printing an address on something typed on a phone keypad, where five short characters and no hyphens is worth paying for.
- You run SMS or short-code campaigns where the domain has to be read off a text message and typed straight back.
- You want to stop a competitor picking up your brand on an extension that still reads as mobile to a certain generation of buyer.
Look elsewhere if
- You are naming a new business. The extension no longer certifies anything about the site, so it signals an era rather than a quality.
- You would be maintaining a second mobile version of your pages to justify it. Google names responsive design first, and a separate mobile address is work with no payoff.
- At £33.99 a year it costs over three times a .co.uk, which carries a UK signal in search that .mobi does not.
Building a new site in 2026? One responsive site on a .co.uk does the job, and skips the second address entirely. See .co.uk pricing.
.mobi vs .app: which should you register?
Anyone shortlisting .mobi for an app landing page should look at .app first, because it does the job .mobi used to claim. Google Registry states that .app is on the HSTS preload list, so browsers force HTTPS on every .app address without the owner configuring anything. That is a working technical guarantee, which is exactly the sort of thing .mobi once made and no longer does.
The words differ in what they describe. A .mobi names the device. A .app names the product. In 2005 the device was the interesting part because so few sites worked on one. Now every site works on a phone, and the product is the interesting part.
On price the .app is cheaper as well, at £20.99 against £33.99. The one argument left for .mobi is that you already own it and have links pointing at it, which is a fair reason to renew and a poor reason to start.
| .mobi | .app | |
|---|---|---|
| Annual price here | £33.99 | £20.99 |
| HTTPS | Ordinary certificate needed | Forced by browsers via HSTS preload |
| What it promises | Nothing, since 2017 | Encrypted connections, always |
| What it names | The device | The product |
| Status today | Base, non-sponsored | Base, non-sponsored |
.mobi domain questions, answered
What people ask us before registering a .mobi domain.
Can't find what you're looking for?
Ask us directlyNo, and this is the single most out-of-date claim you will read about the extension. When .mobi launched in 2005 it was a sponsored top-level domain whose registry agreement required registration policies conforming to a charter, with enforcement procedures behind them. ICANN replaced that contract on 30 March 2017 with the standard base agreement and records it as non-sponsored. There is no charter now, no sponsor, and nothing about your site is inspected.
It resolves normally, renews normally and is operated by one of the largest registry groups, so it is not going anywhere technically. What died was the reason to choose it. Separate mobile sites on separate addresses were a workaround for phones that could not render ordinary pages, and responsive design ended that. Treat an existing .mobi as an asset worth redirecting, and a new one as a decision needing a better reason than the word itself.
No. Google indexes with a mobile crawler by default and judges pages on whether they work on a phone, not on what the address says. A .mobi with a page that does not fit a small screen ranks worse than a .co.uk that does. If mobile performance is your concern, spend the effort on layout, image sizes and Core Web Vitals, because those are measured and the extension is not.
Yes, in almost every case. A permanent redirect passes the links pointing at the old address on to the main site and spares you maintaining two versions of the same content. Keep renewing the .mobi while those links exist, because letting it expire hands the address to whoever registers it next. We can set the redirect up in the My365i control panel, and the domain keeps its free DNS management and email forwarding either way.
Included with Your .mobi 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.
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Register your .mobi domain today
Secure your .mobi domain from just £33.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included.
