800website is a Dubai web design agency. We register domains for clients at AED 200 a year — in their name, which matters more than the price.
Do I need a .ae domain for a UAE business?
Not required, but useful. A .ae domain signals to visitors and to search engines that you are a UAE business, which helps for local searches and for trust with local customers.
The practical answer most established firms reach is to hold both: a .com for international reach and brand protection, and a .ae for the local market, with one redirecting to the other. Which you make primary depends on where your customers are. Serving UAE customers, .ae as primary is defensible. Serving the region or internationally, .com usually wins.
What matters more than the extension is that you own it. A domain registered in your agency’s name is your web address and your email under someone else’s control, and businesses discover this at the worst possible moment.
How do I register a .ae domain?
Through an accredited registrar. The distinguishing requirement is that .ae domains require a UAE presence — typically a valid trade licence — and you will be asked to supply it. That is the main practical difference from registering a .com, which anyone can do in minutes.
The steps: check availability, choose an accredited registrar, submit your trade licence and company details, complete verification, then point the domain at your hosting via nameservers or DNS records.
Three things to insist on. Register in your company name, with your own email as the administrative contact. Turn on auto-renew — expired domains are a routine and entirely avoidable disaster. And keep your own registrar login rather than relying on an agency to hold it.
What is the difference between a domain, hosting and a website?
They are three separate things that people routinely conflate, and understanding the split prevents most confusion about who owns what.
- The domain is the address —
yourbusiness.ae. You rent it annually from a registrar. AED 200 a year with us. - Hosting is the land it sits on — the server storing your files and serving them to visitors. AED 2,400 a year for our premium hosting.
- The website is the building — the design, content and code. A one-time build cost: AED 999, AED 3,500 or AED 6,999.
You can change any one without the others. Move hosts and keep the domain. Redesign and keep both. Change domain and keep everything else, with redirects.
This is why “how much does a website cost” has no single answer, and why a quote covering only the build is not your annual budget.
What if my domain is registered to someone else?
Move it. Domain transfers are a standard process — you request an authorisation code from the current registrar and initiate a transfer at the new one. Where the current holder is uncooperative, registrars have dispute procedures, though it is much easier to avoid the situation than to resolve it.
Check today whose name your domain is in. It takes two minutes and it is worth knowing before you need to.
See published pricing including domains and hosting, or talk to us.
Talk to us
800website is a Dubai web design and development agency with published fixed prices. Send the details and you get a fixed scope and a fixed price back — no hourly billing. Contact us, message us on WhatsApp, or call +971 58 578 5380.
