Domain Name Extensions in a Nutshell

The Dot Com is the most popular of domain name extensions. But now most good .com names are gone. The word extension refers to the .whatever. There are many other domain name extensions and if your .com is gone its counterpart may be available in another extension such as .org or .net.

For the sake of getting traffic authorities say it helps to have a keyword or keywords in your domain name. Authorities also say search engines do not distinguish between one domain name extension and another. While the .COM extension is meant for commerce the .ORG extension is meant for organizations, and .NET is meant for networks, until now how an extension is used is not regulated. Almost any domain name extension can be used for almost anything. So if candy.com is not available but candy.net is available and you want to get candy.something rather than onlinecandy.com or any other derivative of candy then according to authorities you will be fine with another extension. .US is a good new extension. Some authorities do however stress that from the public's eye a .com name holds more weight. They say some people will may have a better impression about the company if the website has a .COM extension. So if it is possible to get a .com extension, that is best.

There are 7 alternative top level extensions recognized by ICANN. They are as follows: * .aero * .biz * .coop * .info * .museum * .name * .pro The next category of domain name extensions are international or other country domain extensions. Every country has its own unique extension. Some countries require that registrars be from the country to get such and such extension. France is an example. Many other countries have agreed to let anyone get the extension of that country. Still for other countries such as Iceland with the nifty .IS extension, ther is a company who acts as an intermediary buying agent for the domain name extensions for that country. The concerns with getting these foreign extensions are that one day the country could change the agreement such as happened with .KZ or Khazakstan. Then all the domain holders there loose their names.

Nonetheless if you want a particular name bad enough and it isn't available in the other domain name extensions then this will be your option. There are at least 40 unique domain name extensions available from .Asia to the Vatican (.VA) and everywhere in between. Below are some links to authoritative resources to further demystify the world of domain name extensions.