What is Domain?

A domain name is your website name and address where Internet users can access your website. Computers use IP addresses, which is difficult for humans to remember. So domain names were developed to identify entities on the Internet rather than using IP addresses.

A domain name is a combination of letters and numbers. It can be used in combination of various domain name extensions, such as .in, .com, .net and more. Every domain name is a unique name and it should be registered before using it.

What is Domain extension?

A domain extension is a suffix or last part of a domain name that comes after the dot to the right of any domain name. It is also known as Top Level Domains or TLDs. For example, the URL address ends with .in or .com.

The new top-level domains are introduced by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). It is in charge of domain names and IP addresses. ICANN works along with Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) which is in charge of assigning the operators of TLDs.

Several different categories of Top-Level-Domains:

  • Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs)
    The most common gTLD is .com and these are the most commonly used TLDs. For example, .edu is used for educational websites and .com for commercial websites. There is a lot of gTLD to choose from that includes .com, .org, and .net. Since 2014 hundreds of more industry or niche focused gTLDs have been released like .coffee, .design, .blog.
  • Generic-Restricted Top-Level Domains
    These are similar to generic top-level domains. These extensions are more restricted and require some extra information to be provided when you register them. Examples include .biz, .name, .pro.
  • Sponsored Top-Level Domains (sTLD)
    Sponsored top-level domains are specialized TLDs, and are available only to specific groups. These are supervised by private organizations. Although sTLDs are part of the gTLD group, they are intended for niche audiences with restrictions on who can register one, and the type of website that they can be used for. Examples include .aero., .gov, .travel, and so on.
  • Country Code Top-Level Domains (ccTLD)
    Each country has a set of country code domain extensions which have two letters generally. Extensions such as .nz, .co.nz, .org.nz and .net.nz are all examples of New Zealand ccTLDs, .au is for Australia.

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