.si domains are having a moment. Should your business grab one?
Just two weeks ago .si was a quiet top-level domain belonging to Slovenia. Then, on 22 September, the US President told the United Nations that America would stop saying “artificial intelligence” (AI) and start saying “Super Intelligence”, or SI for short. An executive order made this official a week later.
You can guess what happened next.
The Slovenian registry recorded 46,066 new .si names in September. Earlier that month it was seeing about 100 a day. By 1 October it counted 13,603 in a single 24-hour period.
You can now register .si domains with Domain Central for $29.95 a year, including GST. We are one of the few Australian providers offering them right now, so you can pay in Australian dollars and deal with a local team instead of an overseas provider.
Now let’s take a closer look at what .si is, who it’s right for, and who might want to skip it.
What is a .si domain?
.si is Slovenia’s country domain, just like .au is for Australia. It’s been around since 1992 and is managed by Slovenia’s national registry.
The big difference from .au is that you do not need any link to the country. Anyone can register a .si name, wherever they live or trade.
If this sounds familiar, it should. .ai is actually from Anguilla in the Caribbean. .io, .co, and .tv also come from places most people couldn’t find on a map. These domains became popular because of what their letters spell. Now, .si is the newest member of that club.
It is also far cheaper than .ai, and you can register it one year at a time rather than the two-year minimum .ai asks for.
Who a .si domain actually suits
Businesses focused on AI. If you sell AI tools, automation, or anything similar, the short .ai name you wanted is probably already taken or very expensive. With .si, many of those names are still available at the regular price. It’s not clear yet if “SI” will catch on, but a year’s registration is an affordable way to reserve your spot while we wait and see.
Anyone who already owns a .ai name. S sits right next to A on the keyboard, so yourname.si is a one-key slip from yourname.ai. Security firm Netcraft has already identified this as an obvious opening for scammers. Owning both domains protects your brand.
Brand owners. The Slovenian registry recommends that brand and company name owners register their .si as soon as possible. Here’s why: Netcraft found that about 52% of .si names registered at one large registrar just before the announcement were immediately listed for resale. If someone else gets your name first, it will cost much more to buy it back than to register it now.
Names that play on the letters. “Sí” means yes in Spanish and Italian, and plenty of English words end in that sound. The video calling service Jitsi lives at jit.si, and Pepsi has used pep.si as a short link. If a playful name suits your brand, there is still room to move.
Anyone doing business with Slovenia. The original purpose has not gone anywhere.
The rules
If you’ve registered a .com.au before, you probably remember all the eligibility questions. With .si, there are none.
- Anyone can register. No Slovenian address, no ABN check, no paperwork.
- First in, first served. If the name is available, you can register it.
- Names run from 2 to 63 characters and cannot start or finish with a hyphen.
- It works like any other domain. Website, email, redirects, the lot.
- There is a dispute process. If someone registers a name you hold a trademark for, the registry has a way to challenge it without going to court. It is still slower and dearer than registering the name yourself.
These rules come from the Slovenian registry’s own terms. The sudden interest has not changed them.
Should you move your website to .si?
No. Keep your .com.au as home base.
Google treats most country domains as a sign that a site is meant for that country. It makes an exception for a handful, including .ai, .io and .co. So far .si is not on that list, which means Google reads a .si website as being for Slovenia. That is not much use to a plumber in Geelong.
The smart play is to register your .si and point it at the website you already have. You hold the name, nobody else can, and your Google rankings stay exactly where they are.
The honest bit
Most of the .si names registered during the rush have gone to investors hoping to resell them, not to businesses building websites. Whether .si becomes a success depends on whether “Super Intelligence” catches on outside of US government documents. No one can predict that yet, not even us.
So do not buy a .si as a get-rich plan. Buy it because your own business name, or the name of something you are building, is worth the price of a year’s registration to protect.
Check your name
Searching takes ten seconds and costs nothing. If your name is still available in .si, it is $29.95 a year, including GST.
Search now at Domain Central.
