Information on Canadian Domains (dot-ca / .ca)
Dot-ca domains or .ca domains are the uniquely Canadian domain names. Whether you are in Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Montreal, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Yellowknife, Yukon, Nunavut, Novascotia, PEI, or Newfoundland, Canadians and Canadian companies may register as many .ca domain names as they want, and can register a dot-ca rather than, for example, a .red-deer.ab.ca .
Up until November 2000, when a new organization called the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) took over administration of .ca domains, the rules were stricter. Now, in general, any Canadian citizen or permanent resident of Canada may register a .ca name, as can any Canadian corporation or trust. So can virtually any other kind of Canadian institution, organization or association.
To register your domain names, please use our service and search for the name of your choice using the "WHOIS" function. You can register a new .ca domain name within minutes. As the rules governing the .ca domain have only recently been opened up, many great names are still available. This is an excellent opportunity to obtain some really valuable Canadian domain names before all the good ones are gone! Even if the domain name you want is not available, you can always try adding the following letters/words to it to come up with a combination that is still available.
Begin your name with:
my |
the |
get |
an |
your |
1-800 |
go |
one |
e |
1800 |
find |
1 |
e- |
for |
buy |
fast |
i |
4 |
sell |
discount |
i- |
about |
a |
bargain |
cyber |
search |
online |
End your name with:
online |
time |
zone |
shop |
family |
now |
central |
inc |
place |
foreveryone |
centre |
2001 |
info |
foryou |
center |
2002 |
s |
4u |
deals |
cafe |
net |
everywhere |
Your .ca domain name must be at least two characters long, and no more 50 characters long. It must consist only of the letters A to Z, numbers and the hyphen character (-). No other characters, such as accent marks, underscores, periods, exclamation marks and so on, are permitted. Note that canadian domain names are not case sensitive. This means there will be no distinction madebetween upper case letters and lower case letters (e.g. A = a, b = B, etc.). These can be combined in any way you wish except that the dot-ca domain name cannot start or end with a hyphen.
The following types of names are not permitted:
Top-level domains (TLDs), such as "com", "us", "uk". For example, www.uk.ca and www.com.ca are not allowed.
The names and abbreviations of Canadian provinces and territories (e.g. ab, alberta, mb, manitoba, etc.).
The following geographical words: "village", "hamlet", "town", "city", "ville".
Names which are already used as third- or fourth-level domain names (see below).
For example, if www.MyDomain.ab.ca is already registered, you will not be able to register www.MyDomain.ca, without written consent from the owner of the lower-level domain. The .ca domain names discussed above are all "top-level domains" or tld, meaning that the entire domain name consists only of "www.", a domain name such as "MyDomain", and the ".ca" designator. Combined together, these would be www.MyDomain.ca. A top-level domain is used to designate the type of organization or the country of origin. Generic top-level designators are commonly three-letter suffixes like .com, .net, .org, .edu. Country code top-level domains are commonly two letter suffixes like .ca, .us, .uk, etc., as assigned by the United Nations. .ca is the country code Top Level domain (ccTLD) designating Canada. .com is the generic Top Level domain (gTLD) designating commercial activities. The policies and administration of the .ca domain name will be set by CIRA and governed by Canadian law. The gTLDs are managed in the United States under American law.
In Canada, third-level domain names are those which end with a province abbreviation and then .ca, such as www.MyDomain.ab.ca (where .ab means Alberta). Fourth-level domain names are those which end with a city or town name, then a province abbreviation, then .ca, such as www.MyDomain.toronto.on.ca. You may no longer register fourth-level dot-ca domain names.
Copyright © 2001-2006 Computer Engineering Inc. All rights reserved.
