Different types of TLDs

TLDs are something you encounter every time you're surfing the web. What is it and how is it used? Read this article and find the answer to these questions.

TLD - Top-Level Domain

As you're browsing through the Internet you encounter TLD's everywhere, probably without thinking about it. So what does TLD stand for? TLD is short for Top Level Domain and it's the last part of an Internet domain name. For example, in the domain name WebHostingSearch.com, the top-level domain is the three letters com. It's not any more complicated than that.

Generic TLD

A generic TLD, gTLD, is a top-level domain that is used in particular by a specific type of organization. These generic TLD's are three or more letters long, and they're named to be a good fit to the organization. The following list is examples of current gTLD's.

  • .aero - for the air transport industry
  • .asia - for companies. organisations and individuals in the Asia-Pacific region
  • .biz - for business use
  • .cat - for Catalan language/culture
  • .com - for commercial organizations, but unrestricted
  • .coop - for cooperatives
  • .edu - for post-secondary educational establishments
  • .gov - for governments and their agencies in the United States
  • .info - for informational sites, but unrestricted
  • .int - for international organizations established by treaty
  • .jobs - for employment-related sites
  • .mil - for the US military
  • .mobi - for sites catering to mobile devices
  • .museum - for museums
  • .name - for families and individuals
  • .net - originally for network infrastructures, now unrestricted
  • .org - originally for organizations not clearly falling within the other gTLDs, now unrestricted
  • .pro - for certain professions
  • .tel - for services involving connections between the telephone network and the Internet
  • .travel - for travel agents, airlines, hoteliers, tourism bureaus, etc.

ccTLD - Country Code Top-Level Domain

A country code top-level domain, also known as ccTLD, is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country or a dependent territory. This is the general rule but sometimes the ccTLD is used in a totally different manner. For example; .dj is a ccTLD for Djibouti but is used for CD merchants and disc jockeys and .nu is a ccTLD for Niue but marketed as resembling "new" in English and "now" in Nordic/Dutch. There are several other examples when a ccTLD is used in a new context. As the Internet grows we can be sure to see more of these examples.