Domain name for a business in Ticino: .ch, .swiss, .it or .com?

For most Ticino businesses, the best domain name is short, has no accents, matches the name customers know the company by and ends in .ch. Depending on the case, add .swiss (only with a UID number and registered office in Switzerland, or for private individuals with their own surname), .it if you do a lot of business with Italy and .com to protect the name. Before registering, check that the name does not infringe anyone else’s trademarks or company names.

Four rules for a good name

1. Short and easy to dictate: say it on the phone. If you have to spell it out, it is too complicated.
2. Understandable in all your customers’ languages: a name that works in Lugano should also work in Zurich and Milan.
3. Close to the company or brand name, not a generic description anyone could use.
4. Built to last: avoid years, product names that may change or the name of a single municipality if you plan to grow.

An example: the carpentry firm Bernasconi GmbH in Mendrisio chooses bernasconi-legno.ch instead of falegnameria-mendrisio-bernasconi.ch. The name is shorter, still fits if it one day opens a second site in Lugano and contains the word customers remember.

Domain extensions compared

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.ch is the standard choice: in Switzerland it is the extension customers type out of habit. .swiss costs more and is only allocated after a check by the Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM), which runs the registry: the name must have a link to the applicant, and generic terms on their own, such as “carpentry”, are not allowed. Natural persons have been able to register .swiss since 24 April 2024, provided the name contains their surname.

Accented letters: caffè.ch or caffe.ch?

Many Italian words carry an accent: caffè, città, società, più. The .ch extension accepts internationalised domain names (IDN) with accents and umlauts; SWITCH, the .ch registry, gives età.ch as an example. Technically the name is converted into an ASCII form starting with xn-- (Punycode).

SWITCH itself recommends not relying solely on an IDN for important applications. In practice it makes sense to:

• use the version without an accent as the main domain and for email addresses, for example caffe-centrale.ch;
• register the accented version only as a variant and redirect it to the main domain;
• think of people typing on a Swiss German or foreign keyboard: the “è” is entered differently there, and many simply replace it with “e”.

Tip: Write the name as one word and read it out loud: some combinations read ambiguously. A hyphen can help (pasticceria-rossi.ch), but two or more hyphens make a name hard to dictate.

Technical rules for .ch names

• a maximum of 63 characters before the extension;
• letters a to z, digits 0 to 9 and the hyphen, plus the accented characters permitted by SWITCH;
• the hyphen may not be at the beginning or end of the name;
• upper and lower case make no difference: Bernasconi-Legno.ch and bernasconi-legno.ch are the same domain;
• municipality names such as bellinzona.ch can only be registered by the municipality concerned.

Check trademarks and company names before registering

A free domain does not mean you have the right to use it. If the name takes over a protected trademark or another company’s name, the rights holder can demand its transfer, for .ch and .li domains also through the SWITCH dispute resolution procedure. Before registering, check:

• Swissreg, the trademark database of the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property (IPI);
• Zefix, the central business name index of the commercial register, for similar company names;
• EUIPO’s TMview for trademarks of the EU and its member states, including Italy;
• the database of the Italian Patent and Trademark Office (UIBM), if you do business in Italy;
• a simple search on the web and on social networks to see who already uses the name.

If the name is central to your business, consider registering it as a trademark with the IPI. A registered trademark also helps if you later want a .swiss domain or have to defend your domain.

Which variants to register

You do not need dozens of domains. For a Ticino SME, two to four variants are usually enough, all linked to the main domain with a 301 redirect:

• the .com with the same name, if it is free, so that no competitor can use it;
• the version with or without a hyphen;
• the accented version, if the name contains an accented word;
• the .it, if you have customers in Italy or want to protect the name there too;
• a common typo, only if the name is easy to misspell.

A cost example with HostOn prices: bernasconi-legno.ch and bernasconi-legno.com together cost CHF 34.80 per year, with registration and renewal at the same price. Adding the .it brings this to CHF 58.70 per year. With web hosting or WordPress hosting, the .ch domain is free for the first year.

One domain, several languages

Many Ticino businesses serve customers in Italian, German and sometimes French. You do not need one domain per language: a single domain with paths such as /it, /de and /fr concentrates visibility in search engines and is easier to manage. So choose a name that works in every language, such as a family name or an invented brand, rather than an Italian word nobody in Zurich can spell.

Changing domain later: what it really costs

A name chosen in a hurry can rarely be changed without consequences. Business cards, signs, vehicles, invoices and online profiles have to be updated, and all your contacts have to learn a new email address. In search engines, too, the website loses visibility for a while until the redirects have been processed.

• Keep the old domain for at least a few years and redirect it page by page to the new one with a 301.
• Keep the old email addresses active as aliases so that no message is lost.
• Register the new name with the same variants as the old one so the mistake is not repeated.

From choice to registration

1. Write down three to five name ideas and say them out loud.
2. Check availability with a WHOIS lookup or in the domain search.
3. Check trademarks and company names on Swissreg, Zefix and TMview.
4. Register the main domain and variants in the company’s name, not in the name of an employee or the agency.
5. Set up the redirects and create email addresses only on the main domain.

At HostOn you can check all extensions in a single search, transferring a .ch domain includes a 1-year extension, and the renewal price is shown when you order.