Define the word top-level domain"toplevel domain" foldoc "The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03)"
top-level domain
The last and most significant component of an
Internet fully qualified domain name, the part after the
last ".". For example, host wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk is in
top-level domain "uk" (for United Kingdom).
Every other country has its own top-level domain, including
".us" for the U.S.A. Within the .us domain, there are
subdomains for the fifty states, each generally with a name
identical to the state's postal abbreviation. These are
rarely used however. Within the .uk domain, there is a .ac.uk
subdomain for academic sites and a .co.uk domain for
commercial ones. Other top-level domains may be divided up in
similar ways.
In the US and some other countries, the following top-level
domains are used much more widely than the country code:
.com - commercial bodies
.edu - educational institutions
.gov - U. S. government
.mil - U. S. armed services
.net - network operators
.org - other organisations
Since the rapid commercialisation of the Internet in the 1990s
the ".com" domain has become particularly heavily populated
with every company trying to register its company name as a
subdomain of .com, e.g. "netscape.com" so as to make it easy
for customers to guess or remember the URL of the comany's
home page.
United Nations entities use the domain names of the countries
where they are located. The UN headquarters facility in New
York City, for example, is un.org.
Several new top-level domains are about to be added (Oct
1997):
.nom - individual people
.rec - recreational organisations
.firm - businesses such as law, accounting, engineering
.store - commercial retail companies
.ent - entertainment facilities and organisations
(1997-10-08)
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