An organization's unique name on the Internet. The chosen name combined with a top level domain (TLD), such as .com or .org, also called a "domain extension," makes up the Internet domain name. For example, computerlanguage.com is the domain name for the publisher of this encyclopedia. By 2008, 450 million domain names had been registered of which 350 million had expired.

Dub-Dub-Dub
In order to access the Computer Language Company Web site, you would type www.computerlanguage.com in your browser's address field. The WWW, often verbalized as "dub-dub-dub," is a mnemonic commonly used for the host name of the company's Web server for uniformity over the Web. If there are multiple Web servers, it is actually the host name of the server that balances the workload and distributes the query to the next available Web server.

However, WWW is only a recommended option, and Web servers can have any host name. In addition, most companies configure their DNS records to send all Web traffic to a particular Web server without any host name. For example, typing computerlanguage.com in a browser's address field without the www. is sufficient to go to the Computer Language Web site.

Different mnemonics are also widely used to differentiate sections of the site; for example, support.computerlanguage.com could be a valid name, in which case "support" could not be omitted when typing in the name.

Second Level Domains
Technically, computerlanguage.com is a "second level domain," because the top level domain is .com. Computerlanguage.com is also known as a "root domain." In practice, both computerlanguage.com and www.computerlanguage.com are called domain names or "URLs," although the latter provides specific detail in many cases (see URL).

Registration
Internet domain names are registered with any of several dozen registrars. To find out if a domain name is taken, two popular domain name registrars are Network Solutions (www.networksolutions.com) and Go Daddy (www.godaddy.com). See DNS, IP address and FQDN.

Generic Top Level Domains

Following are the generic top level domains (gTLDs). The .com is the most desired because all major corporations adopted it early on, and it became trendy. However, if a .com name has already been registered, a .net or .org gTLD is often chosen. See ICANN.

    .com    commercial
    .net    network
    .org    organization

    .edu    U.S. educational only
    .gov    U.S. government only
    .mil    U.S. military only

    .int    international treaties between
              governments only

More Domain Names
In late 2000, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced the following new top level domains (except for .mobi). Top level domains are not added at Internet speed. Prior to 2000, new domains had not been created since 1989. For example, the .mobi domain was announced in 2005.

Expected in 2009, large organizations and industries should be able to create their own top level domain names. A six figure registration fee is also expected. Stay tuned! See New.net and ICANN.

     TLD     Purpose

    .aero    Aerospace
    .asia    Asia
    .biz     Business
    .cat     Catalan region
    .coop    Cooperatives
    .pro     Professional/licensed
    .mobi    Mobile (PDA/cellphones)
    .museum  Museum
    .info    Information service
    .name    Individual/personal
    .pro     Professional
    .tel     Contacts
    .travel  Travel

Country Codes
Country codes such as .ca for Canada and .uk for the United Kingdom are widely used top level domains. The U.S. country code (.us) is also used but not widespread. See country code and .tv.