Does your site need the "www" or not? Short answer: pick one and stick with it.

Technically yourdomain.сom and www.yourdomain.сom can behave like two separate addresses. If both load on their own without redirecting to one version, you can split your traffic and confuse search engines. Choose your preferred version, send the other to it, done.

Team www, or team bare domain?

An XML sitemap is the table of contents you hand a search engine: here's every page worth knowing about. Most site builders generate one automatically now.

The thing to remember is checking it after big changes. An outdated map can point search engines at pages that have moved and add noise, though for a big or brand-new site, having no map at all can be the bigger problem.

July brought major updates across domains, AI, and digital infrastructure — from new gTLD demand and DNS-based AI identity to AI search growth and the t.mе outage.

Catch the full digest here ↩️

Nothing says "nobody's home" like clicking a link on a business site and landing on a 404. The digital version of a shop with its lights on and the door locked.

Broken links just pile up. A page gets renamed here, deleted there, and the site fills with small dead ends. A link check every few months is usually enough.

When did you last check yours?

Underrated habit: when you move a page, update the actual links pointing to it. Don't just lean on redirects to carry the load.

Redirects are a backup for when you miss one. Leaning on them for every link just piles up problems later. A string of five redirects to reach one page is slow, fragile, and tends to break later. Point internal links straight at the real destination and things run cleaner.

Do you keep yours tidy, or is it a someday job?

The it.соm Domains team is back from Domain Summit Europe 2026, which took place in Kempten, Germany. A big thank you to Domain Summit Europe team for creating a space for candid conversations about where the domain industry is heading — from AI-driven discovery to the changing role of trust and domain value.

With only around 65 participants, the intimate format was a real advantage: fewer formal introductions, more time for meaningful conversations and connections that continued well beyond the panels. Special thanks to Helmuts Meškonis for the care and effort he put into bringing the right people together.

When does a domain become a digital asset?

Aron Meystedt, owner of Symbolics.сom, shares what makes premium domains valuable and why timing, trust, and memorability matter. Read ↩️

Launching a site change straight to the live version with no test run takes a certain confidence. Roughly the confidence of cutting your own hair the night before a wedding.

A staging environment is just a private copy where you can break things safely first. Test the move there, and launch day comes with a lot fewer surprises.

A problem we run into: a company's main domain registered under one employee's personal account. Fine, right up until that person leaves on bad terms and takes the keys with them.

Keep it in a company-owned account, with the right people given their own access through it. Boring to set up, priceless the day you need it.

The global chess community could soon have a name of its own online, if a new application to ICANN is approved, and we're proud to be the Registry Service Provider behind it!

FIDE and World Chess have jointly applied for a new .chess domain. If approved, it would give the community, over 600 million people, one name that's recognisably theirs. As World Chess CEO Ilya Merenzon put it, chess has everything a major sport needs, except its own name on the internet.

it.com Domains is acting as the Registry Service Provider to make it possible.

Read the full announcement

Moving your site to a new domain is a bit like a house move. The stuff you forget to redirect is the stuff you'll be hunting for months later.

The part that's easy to skip: telling search engines where everything went. Without redirects mapping old pages to new ones, users and search engines keep landing on the old URLs, hit nothing, and gradually stop coming back, taking years of built-up traffic with them.

The redirects need to be ready and switched on by the time you launch.

Ever moved a site and watched the traffic dip before it climbed back?

A 301 redirect is a change-of-address card for the internet. It tells browsers and search engines "this page moved, here's where it lives now," and carries most of the old page's reputation across too.

Skip it, and old links hit a dead end. Small step, saves a lot of pain later.

New site, no traffic? It's rarely one problem.

Indexing, search demand, intent, promotion, a weak link anywhere holds the rest back. Learn how to diagnose each step in our new article

A working site isn't always a healthy site.

Expired SSL, DNS slips, pages falling out of the index, all easy to miss. 7 free tools to catch them early ↩️

August Industry Digest is out 🌐

Around 1,600 new gTLD applications, a study showing 58% of people lose sites they can't spell, and two Google search updates. Full digest ↩️

Our CEO Andrey Insarov shared a thought in Forbes on what top talent really wants: "Stop hiring stars and asking them to dim their light."

Full piece here ↩️