Owning a .ca domain name has many benefits that you can’t get with a .com or .net domain name. The most obvious benefit is that anyone who sees your site in a search engine or clicks on a link will know that your business is based in Canada. This may sound like a trivial matter, but studies show that Canadians feel more comfortable shopping on websites they know to be Canadian.

Of course, you want to be as close to the top search engine results as possible and there are many ways to do that. But you won’t attract a large number of Canadian customers unless you have a .ca domain name. Search engines know that the content on .ca sites is Canadian, so when someone searches for a site like yours that is located in Canada, it will be near the top of the results. Studies show that sites on the first page of search results get ten times more visitors than those on the second page, and the numbers only go down from there. A .ca domain name is exactly what you need to reach people looking for your product or service in Canada.

Having a .ca domain name also means that you own the name of your website and have exclusive rights to it. There will not be another domain name exactly like yours because before registering such a name it must go through verification. As long as you make it as unique as possible, there’s little chance someone will be directed to another site if they inadvertently type the wrong URL. The renewal fees are very low and very affordable too.

Opting for a .ca site also means your emails will look more professional as they carry your domain name. Imagine if you received an email from

Would you like to open an account in that bank or would you think that it is an overnight business that will soon disappear? A multi-million dollar business doesn’t look like that when they use a free email account! By using email with your domain name, you inspire confidence in your customers and vendors. Also, even if you change your Internet provider, your email does not change.

A .ca domain name is also portable. Once you get your domain name, it’s yours as long as you pay the renewal fees. You can switch between hosts if you want to get better deals or services, but your .ca domain name will always stay the same.