What is TLD and How to Register one?

An introduction to Domains

First of all, the domain name is divided into two parts, let’s take ‘hostilica.com’ as an example. The first part is called the second-level domain (SLD) which is ‘Hostilica’ in our example. The second part is called the top-level domain (TLD) which is ‘.com’ in our example.

Every domain name must have these two parts, we’ll focus on the top-level domain (TLD) in this article, and in case you need to go further about How to choose the right domain name for your business, you will find a Complete Guide here.

A Brief History and the Origins of TLDs

The original top-level domains were developed in 1980, and they were only just six of them, with a unique purpose for each TLD of them. We will expose to you top level domains examples. 

The original TLD list:

But nowadays, there are no restrictions on the meanings of the top-level domains and are used in many different ways.

Generic top-level domains:

Generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are used for general purposes, and the most common (gTLDs) are .com, .info, .net, and .org.

Country code TLDs and GeoTLD:

The country code top-level domains (ccTLDs) and the Geographic top-level domains (GeoTLD or GTLD) are used to identify a geographic location associated with your domain.

ccTLD like .US, .DE, .CA, and so on. GeoTLD like .ASIA, .AFRICA, .NYC, and so on.

The main difference between them is the ccTLD represents a country such as US for the United States, but the GeoTLD represents a specific geographical location or continent such as.ASIA to represent the Continent of Asia.

What About the New TLDs?

 In 2014, the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) introduced the new gTLD program to increase the number of top-level domains by enabling people to submit applications for new extensions. Since then, ICANN received over 2000 TLD requests and ended up adding up to 1300 new TLD. If the application was accepted, then the TLD was added to the internet with general availability for everyone to use.

Some companies applied to brand TLD extensions, such as .BMW, .GOOGLE, and .BARCLAYS.

Also, the new gTLDs included some internationalized domain extensions which are in different languages other than English, including Chinese, Russian, and Arabic.

 Some examples of the new TLDs are:

Are you Interested in the New TLDs?

You can search for your dream domain, and register a new one with the available new TLDs from here, enjoy the search journey of your new significant domain.