.ws Domain
Samoa's Domain Marketed as "WebSite"
Register your .ws domain from just £29.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included with every domain.
What is a .ws domain?
The .ws domain is the country code for Samoa (formerly Western Samoa, hence the "ws"). It has been marketed globally as standing for "WebSite" to attract international registrations. Managed by SamoaNIC, .ws is open to anyone worldwide with no restrictions. The extension is short, clean, and has decent availability compared to saturated namespaces like .com. It's used by businesses and individuals across the globe who want a simple, memorable domain.
Who should register .ws?
Businesses wanting a short memorable domain, personal website owners, startups seeking alternatives to .com, and Samoan organisations.
Why choose .ws?
- Marketed as "WebSite" for global appeal
- Short two-letter extension
- Open to worldwide registration with no restrictions
- Better availability than saturated .com namespace
Who runs .ws, and since when
Registry data from the .ws 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
- Government of Samoa Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade
- The organisation that runs the extension
- In the root zone since
- 1995
- Delegated 14 July 1995
- Who can register
- Open to anyone worldwide, with no connection to Samoa required
- Checked against the registry's own policy
- Our price
- £29.99 a year
- Ex VAT. Renews at the same price
What .ws stands for, and what it costs you
The website marketing came second. WS is the country code for Samoa, taken from Western Samoa, the name the country used when the extension was delegated in 1995. SamoaNIC says it is the registry for .ws and operates under a long term contract with the island, and that .ws, as a country code, does not fall under the authority of ICANN. Registration services are run commercially by Global Domains International, a California corporation, which is why .ws behaves less like a national registry and more like a product.
One consequence deserves your attention before you order. SamoaNIC states that it does not currently offer private domain registration, and that a WHOIS search will show the name, telephone number and email address the registrant used. On most extensions privacy is something we can add for a fee. Here the registry's own answer is that there is none. If you would be registering from a home address, weigh that properly rather than assuming a privacy option exists.
Pricing has an unusual shape too. Four characters and up are ordinary; three character and two character names carry a much larger initial fee, so the tight little hack you have in mind may not be priced like the rest of the zone. Availability is the honest attraction. Names that disappeared from .com before the millennium are still sitting here, and .ws is short enough to say out loud. Do not expect anybody outside the domain trade to hear website, though. They will hear two letters and ask you to spell them.
Is .ws the right choice for you?
We would rather sell you the right extension once than the wrong one twice.
.ws works well if
- The name you want is long gone in .com and .co.uk, and the .ws version is free at a sensible length.
- You are building something short and international where the two letters can be part of the brand rather than an explanation of it.
- You want a hack that lands on a real word ending in those letters, a news or reviews name for instance.
- You already use the name elsewhere and want to stop somebody else trading on the .ws version of it.
Look elsewhere if
- You need your details kept private. The registry says it does not offer private registration, and a WHOIS lookup shows the registrant name, telephone number and email address.
- You will be reading the address out to customers. Two letters standing for a country most people cannot place get spelled out every single time.
- You had a two or three character name in mind. Those sit in a different pricing bracket at the registry, not at the standard rate.
Want a short modern address that explains itself rather than a country code that needs a footnote? A .site does the same job. See .site pricing.
.ws vs .site: which should you register?
Both are sold on the same promise, a short address once the .com has gone, and they arrive at it from opposite directions. A .ws is a South Pacific country code that has been marketed as an abbreviation of website for decades. A .site is a generic extension that says what it is in a word nobody needs explained.
The .ws has the longer history and better availability at three and four letters, although the shortest names carry the registry's higher pricing. The .site has no country attached, so nothing about it invites a question about Samoa, and no ISO committee sits above it deciding whether the code stays.
If the letters do something for your name, take the .ws. If you want a clean short address that explains itself, .site is the easier sell. Neither will do for local search what a .co.uk does, so a UK business chasing UK customers should hold one of those as well.
| .ws | .site | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Country code for Samoa | Generic, no country ties |
| Marketed as | WebSite | What it says |
| Read aloud | Usually needs spelling out | Understood first time |
| Privacy option | None offered by the registry | Paid add-on |
| Oversight | Outside ICANN authority, per SamoaNIC | ICANN registry agreement |
.ws domain questions, answered
What people ask us before registering a .ws domain.
Can't find what you're looking for?
Ask us directlyIt stands for Western Samoa. The extension is the country code for Samoa, delegated in 1995 when the country was still called Western Samoa, and the website reading is marketing that grew up around the coincidence. It is a useful coincidence if your audience works in tech and a puzzling one if it does not, so the fair test is whether the people you sell to will hear a word or two letters they need to write down.
Not through the registry. SamoaNIC states that it does not currently offer private domain registration, and that a WHOIS search will return the name, telephone number and email address used at registration. That is unusual and it is worth knowing in advance. Free WHOIS privacy exists on .uk domains under Nominet rules, and on most other extensions privacy is a paid add-on, but on .ws the registry answer is that no such service is offered.
It gives you nothing for UK visibility. There is no British signal in a Samoan country code, so a business chasing customers here is passing up what a .co.uk provides for a fraction of the annual cost. Where .ws helps is availability: a short, clean name you can actually get. Treat it as a branding choice and, if UK search matters, run a .co.uk alongside it pointing at the same site.
The registry prices them separately. Names of four characters and up sit at the standard rate, while three character and two character names carry a much larger initial fee, on the reasoning that there are far fewer of them. Single character names are negotiated individually. So a two letter idea is not simply a matter of whether it is free, and it is worth checking the price of the exact name before you plan a brand around it.
Included with Your .ws 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 .ws domain today
Secure your .ws domain from just £29.99/yr. Free DNS management, email forwarding, and 10GB mailbox included.
