Getting Your Own .mv Website Started: A Step-by-Step Guide

In today's digital landscape, owning a website is crucial for establishing an online presence. And if you're a local business or individual in Maldives, nothing captures the essence of your identity better than a .mv domain.

But many don’t know how to get one. Not worry, I m gonna guide you step-by-step on your difficult and confusing path of how to get your own .mv domain. Its not that straightforward as you might think. Come-on, after-all we are taking about Maldivian bureaucracy here…

But first for those newbies amongst you, lets all go back to the ABCs of thing and talk about “What is a Domain?”.

Understanding Domains:

So we are all know many domain names, like google.com or facebook.com or Javaabu.edu.mv etc. But technically all these are aliases. The actual site names are like 68.186.187.134 (something like this). AKA IP (Internet Protocol) Addresses.

Each website has its own IP address. But we being human, and with a attention span of less than 30 seconds (GenZ – I m talking about you), we cant expect humans to remember such numbers. So we need easier to remember aliases for them. Thus Domains.

A domain is the address that people type into their web browsers to access a website. It serves as your unique online identity. Domains are translated by the browser to IP addresses by a complicated process called DNS (Domain Name System) Resolution.

So basically, domains consist of two parts: the top-level domain (TLD) and the second-level domain. TLDs are the extensions at the end of a domain, such as .com, .org. Second-level domains are the names you choose to represent your brand or personal identity. There is also generic TLDs and Country specific TLDs. Some examples of generic TLDs are as follows:

generic Top-Level-Domain	Usage
.com	For Commercial use
.org	For Registered Organizations
.edu	For Educational Institutions
.gov	For Government use – but now restricted for only US Government entities.

Get the complete list of all gTLDs from here

Country Code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs):

Country-specific TLDs are used to identify websites associated with particular countries or territories. So Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), a department under the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) – gives each country a ccTLD. Usually, the ccTLD is a two letter abbreviation which stands for the country’s name. Some examples are as follows:

Country-Code-Top-Level-Domain	Country
.my	Malaysia
.uk	United Kingdom
.tv	Tuvalu
.au	Australia
.in	India

Get the complete list of all gTLDs from here

ICANN ensures that the allocation and management of ccTLDs are carried out according to established policies and procedures. However, the specific decisions regarding the establishment, policies, and administration of ccTLDs are made at the national or territorial level, by governments or government assigned third-party.

ccTLD for Maldives (.mv)

The ccTLD for Maldives is .mv. The Communications Authority of Maldives (CAM) being the government authority in the Maldives responsible for regulating and supervising the telecommunications sector, CAM oversees the allocation and management of the .mv domain. Despite this, CAM has no-written policies that is published on their website on this. And the only “policy” I was able to obtain from them was this (download). A two-page document with no official stamp or letter-head with less than a 1000 words on how domain names must be allocated.

And in some unknow year of our history - Dhiraagu, which was back then known as, Dhivehi Raajeyge Gulhun, was assigned to distribute/sell .mv domain names. And from then till this day, Dhiraagu is the only vendor in the whole universe, from where you can get a .mv domain name.

By the way, there is 0 policies even on Dhiraagu website on how they sell or give out domain names. And I have had personally being discriminated in the process. They just use the .mv domain distribution monopoly to sell their unreliable, unreasonably expensive, outdated hosting services and packages. (Honestly don’t get these packages, just get a hosting service from an international hosting service provider).

Anyways, lets stop complaining, and lets get to what we are here for. Let me guide you through the tedious bureaucracy of obtaining a .mv domain.

Step One: Login to Dhiraagu My Account

Until recently, the process of applying for domains was even harder and entirely offline. Now its somewhat bearable, since Dhiraagu introduced their MyAccount service, which allows you to apply for the service online.

Go to Dhiraagu Online Services and Login to Dhiraagu My Account. If you don’t have a login already, you can Sign up. But to signup you must already be a Dhiraagu Customer.

“So for those who arn't a customer already, Sorry, you cant become a Dhiraagu Customer, since you arn't a customer already. Thank you for using Dhiraagu.”

If you are not a customer, you must go to the “Download Application Form” link and pay for a totally unrelated service that you never wanted.

Step Two: Fill in the Online Form

So all Dhiraagu customers who made it this far, lets go to step 2.

Navigate to Apply for Service > Applications.

Then in the first dropdown, choose “Web Hosting & Domain Names”

The second dropdown, choose "New Domain Names”

The third dropdown, choose your Account.

Then under “Domain Name Options” write down the domain name you want. For each option, you can choose between “.mv” or “.com.mv” domain. I personally prefer the “.mv” ccTLD alone since its shorter. The second domain name will be provided if the first domain name is not approved for any reason. Also the second domain name is not optional.

Once you type in a domain name, a loader will appear, and the system will check if its available. Unfortunately, this check doesn’t actually work. Its buggy and often give invalid results.

For examples, the above screenshot is directly from our companies account login. Clearly we have already bought Javaabu.mv domain and is in use. Yet the system states that the domain is available. So don’t trust this!

IMPORTANT!

If the name you are requesting is an already reserved business name, under the Ministry of Economic Development (business.gov.mv), then your application will not be approved. Even if you are the owner of the business, your application will be rejected at first. And you must email back with your certificate of registration for your application to be reconsidered.

Once you have filled out all the required information and submitted the application, you would first receive an email stating the details of your application along application tracking number. You can use this number to call and ask for updates if needed.

Usually, within 24hrs you would get a second email, which would state whether your application was approved or rejected. Your application might be rejected, if the domain was already registered by someone else. Or if it is a reserved business name on business.gov.mv. If you are the business owner who reserved the name, then you must email back with supporting documentation. Please also forward this email to 123@dhiraagu.com.mv to ensure that they attend it soon.

If your application is approved, Congratulations you have just reserved your .mv domain. But don’t celebrate just yet!

If your application is approved, you will be charged MVR 250 for the registration fee. And every month you must pay MVR 50 as monthly fee for the domain, regardless whether your website is active or not. You can also choose to pay a bulk sum in advance.

So, if you had just paid for the domain before even getting started on your website development, I bet you didn’t expect this cost. Trust me! I know all too well, how must it costs to hold on to dreamy domains with no solid plans to actually build anything.

Now lets learn how to connect your site with your new .mv domain.

Step Three: Website Hosting

So, now lets assume you have successfully registered your .mv domain with Dhiraagu. Lets that’s just the name of your website. Now you need to link the name to the files of your website.

But first, for the files to be linkable, they must exist on the internet. You must find a service that will host your files on their servers, aka a webhosting service. In Maldives, there are a few hosting service providers including Dhiraagu and ROL. But I don’t recommend any of them.

To get the best service for the best price, find an online service provider. If you are looking for a shared hosting service (which is suitable for most websites) then go with a provider like GoDaddy or Hostgator. If you are using a dedicated server I would recommend Digital Ocean. You can use your .mv domain with such international service providers as well.

Step Four: Updating Nameservers

Now let’s assume that you have built your website and hosted your files on the hosting service provider. Now let’s connect the files with the domain.

The simplest, yet unknown magic step to use .mv domains with third-party hosting providers is to update your nameserver on Dhiraagu.

Each domain will have nameservers attached to them. Nameservers are like the phonebook of the internet. They translate human-readable domain names into machine-readable IP addresses, directing web traffic to the correct server. To connect your domain with your hosting service, you need to update the nameservers associated with your domain.

But first you need to get the nameserver from your hosting service provider. Often nameserver for your account will be displayed on your hosting dashboard or under DNS settings. If you have trouble finding it, you can ask support services of your hosting provider.

Then you will need to send an email to 123@dhiraagu.com.mv from the email you registered your domain with, requesting to update your domains associated nameservers to the ones provided by your hosting service provider.

And Valah! Your website is now Live! But please note that it might take up to 72hrs for the nameservers to be updated and propagated to all across the internet. Often during this 72hrs you might face some issues in connecting to your new website. Sometimes it might be accessible on mobile network, but not yet available on Wi-Fi networks or vice versa.

Hope you found this article useful, please share this with your friends and family. And if you are interested in learning to code and build websites or mobile apps, do consider our online courses!