.blog domains: who runs the registry and who can buy one

Knock Knock WHOIS There, LLC runs the .blog registry. It's the IANA sponsoring organisation and the contracted registry operator under a base, non-sponsored ICANN Registry Agreement signed 14 May 2015. The name is a subsidiary of Automattic, the WordPress.com company, confirmed in Nominet's own announcement of the original backend deal.

The technical backend, meaning whoever actually operates the DNS and registration systems behind the scenes, has switched hands twice. Nominet ran it from launch until 2019, when the registry moved to CentralNic. Per the current IANA record, the backend now sits with Fury Registry Services, part of Canada's CIRA, after a migration to CIRA's Hello Registry platform wrapped up at the end of April 2025. The registry laid out the move in its own announcement.

Worth untangling the roles here, since .blog uses the standard setup: the registry, Knock Knock WHOIS There, sets the rules and picks the backend that keeps the servers running. A registrar, a company such as GoDaddy, Namecheap or Dynadot, sells you the domain and handles the billing and support calls. You, the registrant, are whoever's name sits on the WHOIS record, the one actually running the thing day to day.

.blog registration is wide open. No eligibility checks based on where you live, what you do for work, or whether the site behind the domain is actually a blog. Hostinger and Dynadot both confirm this, and it's first-come, first-served, same as most gTLDs. GoDaddy's help documentation backs this up too, adding that registration, renewal, transfer and DNS rules stay identical across every registrar selling .blog.

That's a registry-level rule, so it holds regardless of where you buy. What actually differs from registrar to registrar is how they handle the details around it: how much identity verification you go through at checkout, whether privacy protection comes free or costs extra, and price. On naming, you're stuck with standard DNS syntax, so between 1 and 63 characters, and the name has to start and end with a letter or number, per Safenames. A handful of names are also reserved at the registry level. No registrar can sell you those as a normal registration, no matter how you ask.

Transfers follow the standard ICANN process: unlock the domain at your current registrar, grab the auth code (EPP or TAC), then confirm the move at the new one. The usual 60-day locks apply after registration and after a transfer, per ICANN policy, though that rule is under review and could loosen at some point.

Renewal terms differ depending on where you look. Hostinger caps registration at 3 years, while Namecheap allows up to 10 years with a 1-year minimum renewal. Check the term limit at your chosen registrar before you commit to a multi-year purchase, the two don't match.

Nobody publishes .blog-specific numbers for grace period length, redemption cost, or restore fees. The general industry pattern for gTLDs, under ICANN's Expired Registration Recovery Policy, runs an auto-renew grace period followed by a 30-day Redemption Grace Period, during which DNS resolution gets switched off and transfers are blocked. What Knock Knock WHOIS There actually charges to restore a lapsed .blog name isn't listed anywhere we checked. Ask the registrar directly for their .blog redemption fee before you assume you can rescue a name that's slipped past expiry.

The registry's own showcase at my.blog lists a long-running set of featured sites, including github.blog, seths.blog, stackoverflow.blog, micro.blog, and tim.blog. Company engineering blogs sit next to solo writers and niche publications, which fits what registrars keep telling us: this is an open extension that gets used across personal sites, brand blogs, and content projects alike.

Check your registrar's DNS setup requirements before you go live. GoDaddy notes that .blog domains share the same registration, renewal, transfer, and DNS requirements as everything else, and there's no special HTTPS or HSTS mandate buried in the sources we checked. Nothing suggests .blog gets different spam-filter treatment for email deliverability than any other gTLD either, so set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC the normal way, same as you would for any domain.

.blog works best as a primary, standalone address for a content property, not as a redirect target. The string already tells visitors what the site is. One naming tip that's specific to this extension: since "blog" is the suffix, short names before the dot, a first name or a single keyword, read more naturally than they would under a generic ending. Don't try to cram the word "blog" into the second-level name too. Brevity wins here.