Choosing a domain name for Malaysia and India

Which domain name to choose in Malaysia and India

Pick the domain by where your customers are, not by what's cheapest this year:

• Selling only in Malaysia: .com.my, which signals a registered Malaysian business. Add the matching .my if it's available.
• Selling only in India: .in, with .co.in as a fallback if the .in is taken.
• Selling in both, or planning to: a .com, with /my/ and /in/ sections if the content differs by country.
• Building a global product from either country: a .com, and the local domains only to protect your name.

Whatever you choose, register the domain in your company's name, not your developer's. It's the one asset that's painful to recover later.

Who can register .my and .com.my

Malaysia's registry, MYNIC, opened the .my domain to the world in 2024. Its launch announcement says global general availability began on 20 June 2024, and its registrant policy says .my is open to individuals or entities from any country with no geographic restriction.

The third-level domains are different. The same policy says a .com.my applicant must meet at least one eligibility test, such as a company incorporated under the Companies Act, a business registered with the Registrar of Businesses, or, in Sabah and Sarawak, a business licensed under the Commercial License Ordinance. In practice, that means an SSM registration or its equivalent.

So a .com.my now says something a .my doesn't: this business is registered in Malaysia. For a local clinic, shop or contractor, that's a small but useful trust signal.

MYNIC also offers .my names in Jawi, Chinese and Tamil scripts. They're rarely used as a main business address, but worth registering if your brand name is written that way.

Who can register .in and .co.in

India's registry is run under the authority of NIXI, and its registry page says .IN domain names are available to anyone on a first-come, first-served basis. That includes .in itself and second-level zones such as .co.in, .net.in and .firm.in.

There's also .भारत, the Devanagari-script domain, which the registry lists as generally available for languages including Hindi and Marathi. Like the script .my names, it's a protective registration for most businesses rather than the main site address.

How your domain affects Google rankings by country

A country domain is a strong hint to Google about where your customers are. Google's guide to multi-regional sites says a country-code domain provides a strong signal that the site is intended for that country, and lists "can only target a single country" among its downsides.

That's the whole decision for a business selling in both markets:

• A .com.my tells Google the site is for Malaysia. It will struggle to rank in India.
• A .in does the reverse.
• A .com is neutral. Google's guide describes subdirectories such as example.com/my/ as easy to set up and low maintenance, and recommends hreflang annotations to show which version is for which country.

So if you sell in Malaysia and India with different prices, payment methods or languages, a .com with /my/ and /in/ sections and correct hreflang tags gives you one site that can rank in both. Our SEO and analytics work includes setting this up properly.

If your content is identical for both markets, you don't need country sections at all. One .com site can rank in both.

Example: one business, two markets

Here's how we'd set up a Kuala Lumpur company that sells software to clinics and is opening an office in Bengaluru, with different prices and payment methods in each country:

• Main site: example.com, with example.com/my/ for Malaysia and example.com/in/ for India.
• Hreflang tags on each page pair: en-MY for the Malaysian version, en-IN for the Indian one, plus a default for everyone else.
• Local content: prices in RM and FPX or DuitNow at checkout on /my/; prices in ₹ and UPI on /in/; local phone numbers and addresses on each.
• Protective domains: example.com.my and example.in, both redirecting to the matching country section, not to the home page.
• Search Console: one property for the whole domain, so you can see performance in both countries side by side.

One site, one set of links and one codebase to maintain, with each country getting pages built for it. The alternative, two separate country domains, doubles hosting, content updates and SEO work, and each site has to earn its rankings alone.

Should you register more than one domain?

Usually yes, for protection, as long as only one is the real site. Register your main domain plus the obvious variants (.com, .my or .com.my, .in), and point the extras at the main site with permanent 301 redirects.

Don't publish the same content on several domains. That splits your links and confuses search engines about which version to show. One home, several doorways.

Practical checklist when you register

These are small things that save real trouble later:

1. Register in your company's name with a company email address you'll still have in five years.
2. Turn on auto-renew and keep the payment card up to date. An expired domain takes your website and email down together.
3. Compare renewal prices, not first-year promotions. The renewal is what you pay every year after.
4. Keep the registrar login separate from your developer's account, and add them as a user if they need access. Our website maintenance cost guide explains why domain renewals often turn into surprise invoices.
5. Check the trademark register before you commit to a name, in every country you'll trade in.

Changing your domain later

You can move to a new domain, but it costs some search visibility for a while. Google's site move guidance asks for permanent redirects from every old URL, a Change of Address request in Search Console, and redirects kept for at least a year.

That's why the domain decision is worth getting right at the start. If you're moving because of a new name, our rebranding cost guide covers the rest of the switch.

The domain is a small line in a website budget but a long-lived one. If you're planning a site for Malaysia, India or both, our web development team can help you choose the structure before anything is built, or get in touch with your questions.