Your domain is the foundation of your corporate email: it shapes what employee addresses look like and how reliably they work. This article covers how to choose a name and extension, where and in whose name to register the domain, and what to watch so your email doesn't stop working a year from now because of a missed renewal.
Why email needs its own domain
An address like info@example.uz is made of a mailbox name and a domain. You register the domain once and then renew it. As long as the domain is yours, the addresses on it are yours too: you can change email providers and every employee keeps the same address. To see why that beats free accounts, read your own domain vs. free email.
If your company already has a domain for its website, you don't need a separate one. A website and email work fine on the same domain because they use different DNS records.
Choosing a name
- Short and clear. People read email addresses aloud over the phone and write them by hand.
a.karimov@example.uzis easier to take in than an address on a long, three-word domain. - Unambiguous. Avoid names that can be spelled several ways when heard. If your company name has more than one common transliteration, consider registering the variants.
- Careful with hyphens and digits. They're easy to miss when typing:
my-company.uzandmycompany.uzare different domains. - Check trademarks. A name that matches someone else's brand can lead to a domain dispute.
- Stick to Latin letters, digits, and hyphens. For email, it's best to avoid domains in Cyrillic or with national characters, since not every email app or service handles them correctly.
Which extension to choose
| Extension | Good fit when | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
.uz | Your company operates in Uzbekistan and your customers are local | Registered through accredited .uz registrars; read the zone's rules before you register |
.com | You have international customers and partners | Short names are often taken; registered through international registrars |
.org, .net, and others | Nonprofits, technical projects, or when your main name is taken | People may type .com or .uz out of habit |
If your budget allows, register the name in several extensions (for example, .uz and .com). You only need email on one primary domain, while the others protect your brand from lookalikes. If you do need addresses on extra domains, MCMail lets you add multiple domains to one account.
Where and in whose name to register
Picking a registrar
Domains are registered through a registrar, a company authorized to add entries to the zone's registry. When choosing one, look at:
- the price of renewal, not just registration (sometimes the first year is cheap and renewals cost noticeably more);
- a convenient DNS management panel or the option to point to your own DNS servers;
- auto-renewal and expiration reminders;
- a clear process for transferring the domain to another registrar;
- support in a language you're comfortable with.
Whose name to use
Register the domain to the organization, not to an employee, the director as a private person, or the contractor who built your website. The domain owner is whoever is listed in the registration details. If an outsider is listed as owner, getting the domain back can be slow and difficult.
Keep the registrar login somewhere safe (a company password manager, for example), turn on two-factor authentication if the registrar supports it, and list a contact address that won't disappear when one employee leaves.
Registering step by step
- Check whether the name is available using the search form on the registrar's website.
- Fill in the owner details: your organization's information and a contact address.
- Pay for the registration. The minimum term is usually one year.
- Turn on auto-renewal or set a reminder one month before expiration.
- Decide where DNS will be hosted: in the registrar's panel or with another provider.
- Connect your email and add the DNS records your email service sends you. For MCMail, MYCLOUD sends the exact records when you sign up.
DNS records email needs
After registration, you add email records to the domain's DNS. Here's the general shape (the values below are only an example; your email service will give you the real ones):
example.uz. MX 10 mail.example.uz.
mail.example.uz. A 192.0.2.10
example.uz. TXT "v=spf1 mx -all"
_dmarc.example.uz. TXT "v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:dmarc@example.uz"
MX says where to deliver incoming mail, SPF and DMARC protect the domain from spoofing, and the DKIM record holds the public key used to verify message signatures. For more on MX, see MX records.
DNS changes don't take effect instantly. Depending on each record's TTL, it can take anywhere from a few minutes to a day. Plan email cutovers ahead of time, not on the day you need to send something important.
Renewal and common mistakes
- An expired domain. When the registration lapses, both your website and your email stop working, and mail to your addresses isn't delivered. If you still don't renew after the grace period, someone else may register the domain.
- Reminders go nowhere. Registrars send reminders to the contact address. If that's a former employee's mailbox, or an address on the same domain, the reminders may never arrive. Use a reliable address.
- No access to the panel. A contractor built the website and is the only one with the registrar password. Get those credentials in advance.
- Switching DNS without copying records. When moving to different DNS servers, people forget to copy the MX and TXT records, and mail stops arriving. Write down all current records before you switch.
If you're moving an existing domain to a new email service, the steps are in migrating email without losing messages. For questions about connecting your domain to MCMail, message @mycloudsupport.