Glossary of Domain Name Terms

.COM: Short for .commercial. Domain names with the .com extension are by far the most popular, and can be purchased by any individual or business.

.NET: Short for .network, this domain extension was originally designed to be used by technical Web sites. However, domains using this extension can be registered by anyone.

.ORG: Short for .organization. Originally designated for non-profit firms and any other organizations that did not fit under the .com or .net extension, any individual or business may now register a .org domain name.

.BIZ: The .biz TLD is a designated suffix for businesses. Domains using the .biz extension must be used for business or commercial use. This suffix is fully active. http://www.neulevel.biz has more information on the .biz suffix.

.INFO: The first unrestricted top-level domain since .com, .info domains are available to the general public.

.NAME: Available to the general public, .name email addresses are listed as firstname@lastname or lastname@firstname, while Web sites are listed as www.firstname.lastname.name.

Domain servers: This contains the DNS (Domain Name System) information for a domain, and is usually listed in WHOIS records. There are usually two lines of DNS information. The first is typically a site’s primary DNS information, while the second contains secondary/back-up information.

DNS: Short for Domain Name System which is used to translate numeric addresses (known as IP, or Internet Protocol, addresses) into words.

Domain names: The word sequences users enter in their URL bar to visit your site.