Choosing Your Top Level Domain

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June 25, 2003

Once you have figured out a name for your ‘domain' it can be really confusing trying to decide on what should go after the "dot" (i.e. com, net, org, etc...) in your domain name. This part of the domain name is referred to as a top-level domain (TLD) and knowing the difference between each top-level domain is important when choosing your domain name.

Below are the descriptions of the best known top-level domains:

.com - This is the most popular TLD. It is used mainly for US commercial organizations. BUT, in its capacity, it represents the highest standing for any domain name. Anyone can have a ‘.com', but it is more difficult to think up a unique name that hasn't already been registered.

.net - This is the second most popular TLD. It generally describes the entity owning the domain name as a network and is used mainly by organizations that provide network connection services.

.gov - Generally used for government agencies.

.int - Intended to be used for sites relating to International Treaties or containing international databases. For this reason, it is not widely used.

.mil - Mainly used by military organizations of the US government.

.org - In general, non-profit organizations tend to use this extension.

.name - This is a new TLD and is intended to allow individuals to register their names (i.e. firstname.lastname.name) as a personal domain name on the Internet.

.biz - This is a new TLD for businesses; ‘.biz' is intended to be an alternative to the ‘.com'.

.info - This is also new, and is freely available to anyone with a business, government or non-commercial site.