How to Buy a .ma Domain Name in Morocco: A Step-by-Step Guide

To buy a .ma domain, you choose a name, check it is free, register it through an accredited registrar in your own name and point it at your website. The one rule that matters most: the domain must be registered to you or your company, never to the agency that builds your site.

.ma or .com?

.ma is Morocco's country-code extension. It tells Moroccan visitors, and Google, that the site is aimed at Morocco, and it feels more local to customers. A .com is more familiar internationally. If you sell mostly in Morocco, .ma is a sound primary choice. If you serve foreign tourists, a .com (or both, with one redirecting to the other) often makes sense. Whichever you choose, keep one canonical address and redirect the other, so search engines see a single site.

Step 1: choose the name

Short, easy to say and to spell on the phone, with no hyphens or numbers where possible. Match your business name. Check that the same name is free on the social platforms you will use, and that you are not infringing someone else's brand.

Step 2: check availability

Use the search tool of an accredited .ma registrar to see whether the name is free. If it is taken, try a close variation rather than a confusing one.

Step 3: prepare what the registrar asks for

Registration rules and required documents differ by registrar and can change, so confirm them on the registrar's page before paying. Typically you provide the registrant's name, address, email and phone, and for a company some business identification. Use an email address you will keep for years.

Step 4: pick a registrar and register in your name

Compare accredited registrars on price, renewal price, support and ease of managing DNS. Prices vary, so check current rates rather than relying on a blog post. Most importantly, make sure you are the registrant and that you have the login. We never hold clients' domains: you own the domain, and we are given access to configure DNS. The wider cost picture is in what a website costs in Morocco.

Step 5: connect it to your website

Your developer will point the domain's DNS to the host, usually through Cloudflare, and enable HTTPS. Allow some hours for DNS changes to spread. Then check that the www and non-www versions redirect to one address. See Cloudflare for Moroccan websites and SSL and trust.

Step 6: renew on time

Turn on auto-renewal and calendar the expiry date. Letting a domain lapse can take your website and email offline, and someone else may register the name. Add a second contact so a renewal reminder is not lost.

Common mistakes

• Letting the agency or a freelancer register the domain in their name.
• Registering with a personal email that you later lose access to.
• Forgetting the renewal date.
• Using a hard-to-spell name and losing word-of-mouth visits.

If you want us to handle the technical connection for a new site, see what our 6,500 MAD package includes.