Domain names: should you pick a .com, a .fr or a .sx?
Your web address takes two minutes to choose and stays with you ten years. Which extension for a business in St Martin or St Barts, and the traps to avoid.
A domain name takes two minutes to choose and ten years to live with. It ends up printed on the van, at the bottom of the menu, in your Google listing, in every link other sites have pointed at you over the years. Changing your mind three years later is not impossible, but it costs you search ranking, email history and a measure of confusion among the clients who were looking for you.
So it is worth asking the question now, while the answer is still free.
Which domain extension should you choose for a business in St Martin?
A .com, in almost every case. Your clients type it by reflex, it is open to anyone with no conditions attached, and it does not lock you into a single country. A .fr makes sense if you only sell to French residents; a .sx if you operate on the Dutch side and speak first to Sint Maarten.
Everything else is comfort. An extension does not lift you in the results. It only decides what people type on their first attempt.
The two island extensions you will never be able to buy
This question comes up every time: is there a .sxm, an .sbh? No. Two country codes were in fact assigned to the two French collectivities back in 2007: .mf for Saint-Martin and .bl for Saint-Barthélemy. They have sat reserved at IANA for nearly twenty years, were never delegated to a registry, and so do not exist in the DNS at all. Nobody can buy one, today or tomorrow.
On the French side, that leaves three real options: .com, .fr and Guadeloupe's .gp. On the Dutch side, .sx is a genuine registry, open to the world since 2012 with no local presence requirement, and it costs two to three times a .com depending on the registrar.
What the extension changes for Google, and what it does not
Google's own documentation is blunt on one point: a country extension is a strong signal, but it points at a single country. A .fr tells Google "this site is intended for France".
Now read that sentence again while thinking about who actually pays you. Some of your bookings come from North America, some from the Dutch side, some from mainland France. A .fr files you under the least useful of the three, and a .sx under something narrower still. A .com says nothing at all, which is exactly what you want from it.
That said, the extension is not an SEO lever. What gets you found locally is your Google Business Profile and the content of your pages, not the three letters after the dot. That is the trade-off we lay out market by market on our web agency in St Martin page, where visitors arrive from three different countries.
Should you put sxm or st-martin in your domain name?
Yes, when the name on its own is too generic or already taken. sxm is short, it dictates cleanly over the phone, and it is what residents and regulars type anyway. villasxm.com is a good name. the-most-beautiful-villas-in-st-martin.com is not.
The distinction matters: stuffing keywords into the address does not buy you a position. A short name people can repeat is worth far more than a long one packed with words nobody types twice.
The composition rules that save you trouble
It has to work over the phone. That is the only test that counts. If you have to say "with a hyphen in the middle", you will be saying it five times a day for ten years.
No accents, and no hyphens if you can help it. Accents technically work; in practice they break emails and copy-paste.
Test the version without the connector. A business called "Sel & Vent" should look at seletvent.com and selvent.com. The version without the "and" is often the one still free, and it dictates better.
Check that no namesake already holds it. A name identical to an established business elsewhere in the Caribbean will cost both of you clients in both directions.
What if the name is already taken?
First, look at whether it is genuinely in use. An address bought and left sitting on a parking page is not a competitor, but that does not make it for sale either. Do not wait for it to free up. Take a variant.
The three variants that work, in this order: add sxm or sbh, drop the connector, add the trade. What does not work: buying six extensions "for protection". One domain, perhaps a second one defensively, and you stop there. The rest is an annual subscription working for nobody.
What to buy, and in whose name
One domain, registered in your name, with your email and your card, auto-renewal switched on. That is around fifteen euros a year for a .com, and it is the single most critical piece of the whole setup: check that it really belongs to you before printing it on anything.
Write down five candidates, say them out loud as if you were giving them over the phone, check availability, and buy the one still standing. The .com first, the rest afterwards.
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