Reserved Domain Names Procedures Summary 

This guide is based on the document (Procedures Governing Reserved Names Under Saudi Domain Names).

Reserved Domain Names Procedures Summary

This guide is based on the document (Procedures Governing Reserved Names Under Saudi Domain Names ) . It is obvious that not all domain names should be available for registration without any constraints except the availability, since the domain names are derived from the language words, it often hold the same words meanings even if they were indecent or inappropriate to be registered , among the reasons for that are the domains that has carry a religious, sensitive, obscene or immoral meanings . such domains should not be registered in a normal way, if the applicant climes that he has a justification for that he should follow a special procedure in order to register such domains .

Reserved domain names categories

According to SaudiNIC procedures, reserved domain names falls into one of the following categories:

  • Geographical names: names that represent cities and provinces, regions and countries.
  • Plain Numbers and letters: This includes any single letter domain or numerical domains composed of 5 or less digits.
  • Misleading: domains that contain sensitive words or phrases, such as: (Ministry) or (Saudi Arabia - Saudi) or (Bank) and so on.
  • Religious: Domains that includes the names of religions holly places or the names and attributes of Allah and the names of the prophets and apostles.
  • Inappropriate: Domain names that includes words and phrases entailing an attack on the religion or the homeland or the rights of others. It includes also obscene or indecent words against the public taste.
  • Related to registration service: This includes words and phrases reserved under the international standards related to domain name registration service, such as the names used by SaudiNIC for its services.
  • Other: This includes words and phrases that do not apply to one of the previous classifications, such as the names of celebrities and public figures and tribes.

Reserved names list

SaudiNIC developed a list of domain names falling in one of the above mentioned categories, any request to register a domain from that list will be rejected on the bases of requesting a reserved name, anyone can suggest adding any word to that list by following the procedure for that, it also possible to request removing any word from that list also by following the proper procedure for that , in general SaudiNIC is responsible of maintaining that list.

Can reserved domain names be registered ?

In the case of requesting the registration of a domain name from the reserved names list the request will be automatically rejected, the domain in question should be first removed from the list by a special procedure then it can be registered.