Picking a domain is the first decision most Canadian businesses make online, and the choice between .ca and .com comes up every time. There is no single right answer, but there is a right answer for your situation. This guide gives you the trade-offs in plain language.
What each extension says about you
.ca is Canada’s country-code domain, run by CIRA (the Canadian Internet Registration Authority). It tells a visitor, and Google, that the business is Canadian before they have read a word. Canadians recognise it instantly and trust it: surveys by CIRA consistently find that Canadians prefer to buy from .ca sites when the choice is available.
.com is the global default. It carries no location signal, which is a strength if you sell internationally and a weakness if you sell locally, because a .com in Toronto competes with every .com in the world for the same name.
When .ca wins
- Your customers are in Canada. A dentist in Calgary, a landscaper in Halifax, a Shopify store shipping only within Canada. The .ca is a free trust signal and Google treats it as a hint that your site is relevant to Canadian searches.
- The .com is taken. It usually is. Rather than settling for a hyphenated or misspelled .com, the clean .ca is almost always available and looks more professional.
- You want local search results. Google’s geotargeting uses the country-code extension automatically. With a .com you have to set the target country yourself in Search Console.
When .com wins
- You sell outside Canada. A software product, an online course, a wholesale exporter. A .ca can make American or European buyers hesitate about shipping, currency or whether the offer even applies to them.
- Your brand is the product. If you expect to say the name out loud on podcasts or ads, .com is what people type by reflex.
- You are raising money or planning to sell the business. Investors and buyers still see the .com as the “real” asset.
The requirement people forget about .ca
You must meet CIRA’s Canadian Presence Requirements to hold a .ca. In practice that means you are a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, a corporation registered in Canada, a Canadian partnership, association, trust, or a few other categories such as holding a Canadian trademark. A foreign company with no Canadian entity cannot simply register a .ca, which is exactly why the extension is trusted.
When you register a .ca through WebClub you choose your legal type during checkout and the registration is verified against it. Keep your registrant details accurate; CIRA can suspend a domain whose contact information is false.
The answer most businesses land on: both
Register the .ca and the .com of your name, make one of them the main site, and redirect the other to it. It costs one extra renewal a year and it closes the door on a competitor or a squatter taking the twin of your brand. If you only budget for one, pick by the rules above and add the second one when the business grows.
Practical tips before you register
- Keep it short and spellable. If you have to explain the spelling on the phone, choose again.
- Avoid hyphens and numbers. They get lost when spoken and look spammy.
- Check the trademark. Search the Canadian Trademarks Database before you fall in love with a name.
- Turn on WHOIS privacy. For .com it hides your address from spammers; WebClub includes it at no charge. For .ca, CIRA already hides individual registrant details by default.
- Set it to auto-renew and keep a current card on file. An expired domain is the most avoidable disaster in small business.
What a .ca and a .com cost
At WebClub a .ca is $22.95 a year and a .com is $17.95 a year, and the renewal is the same price as the registration; there is no first-year bait price. Both include DNS management, email forwarding and free transfers in. Our domain search checks availability for both at once so you can see in a second whether the pair is free.
Still not sure which to pick for your name? Send it to us and we will give you a straight recommendation, no charge.