Web Hosting Reviews & Ratings

April 29, 2010

Identifying the Various Types of Top-Level Domains

Top-Level Domains are a piece of the technological world that every internet user encounters each time they access the internet. A top-level domain is the remaining part of an internet domain name.

Twenty Generic Top-Level Domains

There are twenty generic top-level domain extensions; some of which are well known, others that are not. Top-level domains essentially identify a type of organization and are three letters or more, usually describing the group. The twenty top-level domains include:

.aero is used within the air transport sector, . asia represents companies, individuals as well as organizational groups within the Asia-Pacific geographic location. .biz is used for business websites, .cat for Catalan language and culture, .com for unrestricted commercial use, .coop for a cooperative group, .edu for educational organizations usually at the collegiate level and .gov for areas of the government as well as agencies within the United States.

Also, .info is utilized by unrestricted informational sites, .int for international organizations created by a treaty, .jobs for employment sites, .mobi represents mobile device websites, .museum is used by museums and .name is for families and individuals.

Furthermore, .net was originally used for network infrastructures only but now is unrestricted, .org is also currently unrestricted but used to be utilized by organizations only and .pro is profession specific. Additionally, .tel is utilized by services that connect between telephones and the internet and .travel is used by travel agents, hotels, airlines, and any business within the tourism industry.

Country code top-level domains represent different countries and territories. There are currently a few top-level extensions used in many contexts. For instance, .dj represents the country Djibouti but is also used by disc jockeys. Also, .nu is used by the country Niue but also means “now”  in the Nordic language.

Each country and many territories across the globe have a top-level country code, therefore it’s much too tedious to list each one. A few common country codes include; .ca for Canada, .de for Germany, .hk for Hong Kong, .mx for Mexico, .fr for France, .va for Vatican City and finally .us for United States.

Top-level domains are an ingredient in the URL mixture that completes the meal. These three or more letter abbreviations are descriptive representations of the type and or location of the website. As the internet expands, adding more websites, additional top-level domains will become the norm.

Tags: .mobi,  .gov,  top level domains,  TLD,  .edu,  .coop,  .biz,  .asia