Domain Names

Last updated by Roedy Green ©1998-1999 Canadian Mind Products.

Introduction

On the Internet, you can access computers by number (IP e.g. 216.66.157.8) or by name e.g. mindprod.com. The name without any www or other prefix is called the domain name.

This essay that will tell you more than you wanted to know about domain names, ownership rights, DNS (Domain Name Service), TLDs (Top Level Domains), country code TLDs, domain name speculation, resources for buying domain names, wet blanket caveats and how to buy a domain name without a broker.

Ownership Rights

When you own a name such as mindprod.com you own world wide rights to it, You are absolute ruler of that realm/domain and can choose to carve it up with whatever dot prefixes you choose, e.g. www.mindprod.com, ftp.mindprod.com, products.mindprod.com or even silly.mindprod.com. You own exclusive right to all possible prefixes including all the mail addresses, e.g. roedy@mindprod.com. Domain names are not case sensitive, so that if you own mindprod.com you also automatically own MindProd.com as well. However you do not necessarily own the rights to other prefixes not separated by a dot, e.g. blowyourmindprod.com. You could buy them separately of course. Further you do not necessarily own that name with other TLD (Top Level Domain) suffixes, e.g. mindprod.org or mindprod.ca.

DNS

There are computers spread all over the Internet called DNS (Domain Name Service) servers. They will look up a name for you and give you the equivalent numeric IP. This happens automatically whenever you key a website name into your browser or FTP client. You may have several computers serving your domain. Each would have its own separate IP, and would serve some subset of the possible prefixes, e.g. one computer might handle ftp.mindprod.com where another would handle www.mindprod.com. The DNS system considers the name prefixes as well as the domain name when looking up an IP.

TLDs

The most common domains end in .com which means commercial. This suffix is called the TLD (Top Level Domain). Other common ones are .org organisation, .edu educational institution, .gov government, .net network and .mil military. Short .com names are considered the most prestigious. They are also easiest for customers to remember.

Country Code TLDs

There are country TLD suffixes as well, e.g. .ca or Canada, .uk for the United Kingdom, .de for Germany, .au (formerly .oz) for Australia. For the definitive set, see the ISO 3166 Two-letter country codes. The table below was up to date as of 1999/01/09. Normally two letter country codes are all upper case. However, traditionally TLDs are always shown in lower case.
By country
country code
Afghanistan af
Albania al
Algeria dz
American Samoa as
Andorra ad
Angola ao
Anguilla ai
Antarctica aq
Antigua and Barbuda ag
Argentina ar
Armenia am
Aruba aw
Australia au
Austria at
Azerbaijan az
Bahamas bs
Bahrain bh
Bangladesh bd
Barbados bb
Belarus by
Belgium be
Belize bz
Benin bj
Bermuda bm
Bhutan bt
Bolivia bo
Bosnia and Herzegowina ba
Botswana bw
Bouvet island bv
Brazil br
British Indian Ocean Territory io
Brunei Darussalam bn
Bulgaria bg
Burkina Faso bf
Burundi bi
Cambodia kh
Cameroon cm
Canada ca
Cape Verde cv
Cayman Islands ky
Central African Republic cf
Chad td
Chile cl
China cn
Christmas island cx
Cocos (Keeling) Islands cc
Colombia co
Comoros km
Congo cg
Congo, the Democratic Republic of the cd
Cook Islands ck
Costa Rica cr
Cote d'Ivoire ci
Croatia (local name: Hrvatska) hr
Cuba cu
Cyprus cy
Czech Republic cz
Denmark dk
Djibouti dj
Dominica dm
Dominican Republic do
East Timor tp
Ecuador ec
Egypt eg
El Salvador sv
Equatorial Guinea gq
Eritrea er
Estonia ee
Ethiopia et
Falkland Islands (Malvinas) fk
Faroe islands fo
Fiji fj
Finland fi
France fr
France, Metropolitan fx
French Guiana gf
French Polynesia pf
French Southern Territories tf
Gabon ga
Gambia gm
Georgia ge
Germany de
Ghana gh
Gibraltar gi
Greece gr
Greenland gl
Grenada gd
Guadeloupe gp
Guam gu
Guatemala gt
Guinea gn
Guinea-Bissau gw
Guyana gy
Haiti ht
Heard and McDonald Islands hm
Holy See (Vatican City State) va
Honduras hn
Hong Kong hk
Hungary hu
Iceland is
India in
Indonesia id
Iran (Islamic Republic Of) ir
Iraq iq
Ireland ie
Israel il
Italy it
Jamaica jm
Japan jp
Jordan jo
Kazakhstan kz
Kenya ke
Kiribati ki
Korea, Democratic People's Republic of kp
Korea, Republic of kr
Kuwait kw
Kyrgyzstan kg
Lao People's Democratic Republic la
Latvia lv
Lebanon lb
Lesotho ls
Liberia lr
Libyan Arab Jamahiriya ly
Liechtenstein li
Lithuania lt
Luxembourg lu
Macau mo
Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of mk
Madagascar mg
Malawi mw
Malaysia my
Maldives mv
Mali ml
Malta mt
Marshall Islands mh
Martinique mq
Mauritania mr
Mauritius mu
Mayotte yt
Mexico mx
Micronesia, Federated States of fm
Moldova, Republic of md
Monaco mc
Mongolia mn
Montserrat ms
Morocco ma
Mozambique mz
Myanmar mm
Namibia na
Nauru nr
Nepal np
Netherlands nl
Netherlands Antilles an
New Caledonia nc
New Zealand nz
Nicaragua ni
Niger ne
Nigeria ng
Niue nu
Norfolk Island nf
Northern Mariana Islands mp
Norway no
Oman om
Pakistan pk
Palau pw
Panama pa
Papua New Guinea pg
Paraguay py
Peru pe
Philippines ph
Pitcairn pn
Poland pl
Portugal pt
Puerto Rico pr
Qatar qa
Reunion re
Romania ro
Russian Federation ru
Rwanda rw
Saint Kitts and Nevis kn
Saint Lucia lc
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines vc
Samoa ws
San Marino sm
Sao Tome and Principe st
Saudi Arabia sa
Senegal sn
Seychelles sc
Sierra Leone sl
Singapore sg
Slovakia (Slovak Republic) sk
Slovenia si
Solomon Islands sb
Somalia so
South Africa za
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands gs
Spain es
Sri Lanka lk
St. Helena sh
St. Pierre and Miquelon pm
Sudan sd
Suriname sr
Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands sj
Swaziland sz
Sweden se
Switzerland ch
Syrian Arab Republic sy
Taiwan, Province of China tw
Tajikistan tj
Tanzania, United Republic of tz
Thailand th
Togo tg
Tokelau tk
Tonga to
Trinidad and Tobago tt
Tunisia tn
Turkey tr
Turkmenistan tm
Turks and Caicos Islands tc
Tuvalu tv
Uganda ug
Ukraine ua
United Arab Emirates ae
United Kingdom gb
United States us
United States minor outlying islands um
Uruguay uy
Uzbekistan uz
Vanuatu vu
Venezuela ve
Viet Nam vn
Virgin Islands (British) vg
Virgin Islands (U.S.) vi
Wallis and Futuna islands wf
Western Sahara eh
Yemen ye
Yugoslavia yu
Zambia zm
Zimbabwe zw
   
By code
code country
ad Andorra
ae United Arab Emirates
af Afghanistan
ag Antigua and Barbuda
ai Anguilla
al Albania
am Armenia
an Netherlands Antilles
ao Angola
aq Antarctica
ar Argentina
as American Samoa
at Austria
au Australia
aw Aruba
az Azerbaijan
ba Bosnia and Herzegowina
bb Barbados
bd Bangladesh
be Belgium
bf Burkina Faso
bg Bulgaria
bh Bahrain
bi Burundi
bj Benin
bm Bermuda
bn Brunei Darussalam
bo Bolivia
br Brazil
bs Bahamas
bt Bhutan
bv Bouvet island
bw Botswana
by Belarus
bz Belize
ca Canada
cc Cocos (Keeling) Islands
cd Congo, the Democratic Republic of the
cf Central African Republic
cg Congo
ch Switzerland
ci Cote d'Ivoire
ck Cook Islands
cl Chile
cm Cameroon
cn China
co Colombia
cr Costa Rica
cu Cuba
cv Cape Verde
cx Christmas island
cy Cyprus
cz Czech Republic
de Germany
dj Djibouti
dk Denmark
dm Dominica
do Dominican Republic
dz Algeria
ec Ecuador
ee Estonia
eg Egypt
eh Western Sahara
er Eritrea
es Spain
et Ethiopia
fi Finland
fj Fiji
fk Falkland Islands (Malvinas)
fm Micronesia, Federated States of
fo Faroe islands
fr France
fx France, Metropolitan
ga Gabon
gb United Kingdom
gd Grenada
ge Georgia
gf French Guiana
gh Ghana
gi Gibraltar
gl Greenland
gm Gambia
gn Guinea
gp Guadeloupe
gq Equatorial Guinea
gr Greece
gs South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
gt Guatemala
gu Guam
gw Guinea-Bissau
gy Guyana
hk Hong Kong
hm Heard and McDonald Islands
hn Honduras
hr Croatia (local name: Hrvatska)
ht Haiti
hu Hungary
id Indonesia
ie Ireland
il Israel
in India
io British Indian Ocean Territory
iq Iraq
ir Iran (Islamic Republic Of)
is Iceland
it Italy
jm Jamaica
jo Jordan
jp Japan
ke Kenya
kg Kyrgyzstan
kh Cambodia
ki Kiribati
km Comoros
kn Saint Kitts and Nevis
kp Korea, Democratic People's Republic of
kr Korea, Republic of
kw Kuwait
ky Cayman Islands
kz Kazakhstan
la Lao People's Democratic Republic
lb Lebanon
lc Saint Lucia
li Liechtenstein
lk Sri Lanka
lr Liberia
ls Lesotho
lt Lithuania
lu Luxembourg
lv Latvia
ly Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
ma Morocco
mc Monaco
md Moldova, Republic of
mg Madagascar
mh Marshall Islands
mk Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of
ml Mali
mm Myanmar
mn Mongolia
mo Macau
mp Northern Mariana Islands
mq Martinique
mr Mauritania
ms Montserrat
mt Malta
mu Mauritius
mv Maldives
mw Malawi
mx Mexico
my Malaysia
mz Mozambique
na Namibia
nc New Caledonia
ne Niger
nf Norfolk Island
ng Nigeria
ni Nicaragua
nl Netherlands
no Norway
np Nepal
nr Nauru
nu Niue
nz New Zealand
om Oman
pa Panama
pe Peru
pf French Polynesia
pg Papua New Guinea
ph Philippines
pk Pakistan
pl Poland
pm St. Pierre and Miquelon
pn Pitcairn
pr Puerto Rico
pt Portugal
pw Palau
py Paraguay
qa Qatar
re Reunion
ro Romania
ru Russian Federation
rw Rwanda
sa Saudi Arabia
sb Solomon Islands
sc Seychelles
sd Sudan
se Sweden
sg Singapore
sh St. Helena
si Slovenia
sj Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands
sk Slovakia (Slovak Republic)
sl Sierra Leone
sm San Marino
sn Senegal
so Somalia
sr Suriname
st Sao Tome and Principe
sv El Salvador
sy Syrian Arab Republic
sz Swaziland
tc Turks and Caicos Islands
td Chad
tf French Southern Territories
tg Togo
th Thailand
tj Tajikistan
tk Tokelau
tm Turkmenistan
tn Tunisia
to Tonga
tp East Timor
tr Turkey
tt Trinidad and Tobago
tv Tuvalu
tw Taiwan, Province of China
tz Tanzania, United Republic of
ua Ukraine
ug Uganda
um United States minor outlying islands
us United States
uy Uruguay
uz Uzbekistan
va Holy See (Vatican City State)
vc Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
ve Venezuela
vg Virgin Islands (British)
vi Virgin Islands (U.S.)
vn Viet Nam
vu Vanuatu
wf Wallis and Futuna islands
ws Samoa
ye Yemen
yt Mayotte
yu Yugoslavia
za South Africa
zm Zambia
zw Zimbabwe

Domain Name Speculation

Had you the foresight in 1992 to spend $50 US and buy the rights to mcdonalds.com, mcdonalds.ca or mcdonalds.us you could be a multimillionaire today. Then again, McDonald's could have sued you for trademark infringement. Trademark owners are sometimes taking domain names away from speculators without even the formality of going to court.

The hope of sudden riches has fueled a fad, speculation in domain names. People buy domain names for a $70 US InterNIC (the body that hands out .com names) registration fee (for the first two years) and a $35+ US handling fee to some broker. Most Internet domain name brokers charge a percentage of the sale price, not a flat fee. Speculators hope some company will want the name and pay some considerably higher price. Some names have gone for millions of dollars. Some speculators lease out a name to one or more people, especially a prestigious email address. Of course, most of names purchased for speculation have not sold at all. Nearly every name in the dictionary, every slang word and every slang phrase, has been purchased. Every misspelling and variant of popular site names such as altavista.com have been snapped up my remoras, people hoping to pick up stray hits. There are few reasonable names left speculators have not taken. Right now, there is a domain name registered for every three US citizens.

You have to pay $35 US a year to keep your registration. If you don't pay, it goes up for grabs again. This is a another source of prime domain names for speculators.

Some countries such as Turkmenistan (.tm), Guernsey (.gg), Jersey (.je) and the Isle of Man (.im), encourage foreign companies to register. Others such as South Africa (.za) insist the servers be on South African soil. Check with iana to see who is in charge of the country or top level domain that interests you. Often they won't even have a website, just an email address. Normally you go through a broker, so finding that information is his problem.

In researching this, I came across some clearly fraudulent domain-selling sites. Especially if you plan to buy a non-standard TLD, do some research on your broker; make sure you really get world-wide exclusive use of the name and that others could really find you on the net. It is not much use to have a name that is not properly hooked into the global DNS system. You should be able to find lots of sites on the net using the proposed TLD if all is on the up and up. You might see if any of those sites will be willing to tell you the email address of their broker and how they like him. I am particularly suspicious of the .shop and .rec domains because of conflicting information I read.

Resources For Buying Domain Names

If you want to play this speculation game, or if you simply want to find a suitable domain name for your own business, here are some resources:
body TLDs they manage notes
iana the global authority Manage handing out country codes and other top level domains. Best source for contact of who is in charge in each country and top level domain. You don't deal with them directly.
Altavista search engine Search for "domain names" to find domain names for sale.
Alternic.net various e.g.: .art .arts .asia .aus .bank .cam .dds .design .email .exp .fam .faq .film .firm .fun .gay .games .ger .globe .gmbh .help .i .inc .info .jpn .kids .law .learn .llb .lnx .ltd .mail .mag .med .media .netz .nic .nom .per .prices .radio .rsc .sea .service .sex .sky .space .sport .shop .tour .travel .usvi .web .wir .wired .wine .xxx .zine .zoo Non-standard TLDs.
APNIC.net various e.g.: .cn .id .in .jp .kp .kr .mm .ph .th .tw national domain names for Asia and the Pacific.
ARIN IP numbers American Registry For Internet Numbers. Handle assigning IP numbers (not domain names) for North America, South America and sub-Saharan Africa. Unless you want to buy thousands of IP's you would contact an ISP instead.
BB-online broker for .ie, .as, .no, .se, .tm, .uk, .co.uk, .uk.com Irish company. I have had no dealings with them, but they have an impressive web site.
CDnet.ca .ca Canada
co.za .co.za South African commercial domains
CoreNic list of brokers Trade organisation that maintains a global list of brokers who will help you buy domain names.
The Domain Name Handbook book (ISBN: 0-87930-515-0) by Ellen & Peter Rony. A comprehensive guide to domain name speculation. It will show you how to buy domain names without using a broker. It also talks about the legal issues revolving around trademarks vs. domain names and how various disputes over domain names have been resolved.
Domain Baron sells domain names They have names for sale, and can provide you with links to other resources. If you want to speculate, 10% of your problem is finding good names to buy, and 90% is finding customers to sell them to. They will list your name on their site. Run by my housemate Dave Bedford who has been badly bitten by the domain name speculation bug.
eDNS various e.g.: .biz .corp .gay .k12 .npo .pol .web Non-standard TLDs.
fapesp.br .br Brazil
FCN.net fcn.net They parcel out higher order parts of that one name.
iana .int International Treaty Organisations
iana .us USA
Inter-Corporate broker for .com, .org, .ca, .net, .edu and any others. They will broker buying your domain name for you. They charge only a flat $35 CDN (plus the InterNIC fees). This is the lowest brokerage fee I have heard of, and they give the best service of any ISP I have ever dealt with. Very good people. The $35 CDN setup includes the use of Inter-Corporate's secondary DNS servers, and when used for the purpose of selling domain names, those are the only fees. They don't ask for a percentage of the sale, and the setup fee includes the final transfer as well. They can also host websites, do HTML, artwork etc. Email Randy Richardson <randy@inter-corporate.com> for more information.
InterNIC.net .com .net .org .edu They have an online database of which names are taken, and who has which names, and when they are due to expire if the owner does not renew.
nic.je .gg .je The Channel Islands .gg (Guernsey, Alderney, Sark) and .je (Jersey) domains
nic.mil .mil American military
NIC.mx .mx Mexico
registration.fed.gov .gov American federal government
RIPE.net various e.g. .at .be .ch .cz .de .dk .es .fi .fr .gr .hu .ie .is .nl .no .pl .pt .se .uk national domain names for Europe
RIPE.net list of brokers Global list of brokers sorted by country who will help you buy domain names.
uinet .za South Africa
webtld.com .web Handle just this one TLD.

Wet Blanket Caveats

Allow me a dour personal comment. Hopes of high profit for no work is a form of gold fever, and not all that different from playing the slot machines. Speculators do no useful work, other than perhaps subsidising the name assigning organisations. They are sponges on the body politic. Nature punishes nearly all of them. The main ones who get rich are those who provide services for the gambling addicts, just as in a goldrush.

Consider the crazed tulip speculation in renaissance Holland. Prices on a single bulb were bid up to astronomical levels -- $30,000 a bulb. Then, suddenly, people noticed that bulbs actually had little real value, and the whole economy collapsed. I am watching a similar domain name gambling fever gripping my friends. The basic rule of gambling is, don't risk more than you can afford to lose. Consider also the law of supply and demand. There is a very large pool of potential domain names and only a few customers willing to part with any substantial dollars for one. If you want to make money, you will have to be very clever.

Consider also that IANA could at any time make available additional TLDs such as .store and .ski which will dilute the value of .com names.

People are buying up the silliest names that I doubt will ever sell. It might be worth while to study the market to see what names are selling before leaping in with both feet. My student project domain database would help you make intelligent buying decisions.

On the other hand, if you think you may want a domain name for yourself any time in the next ten years, act quickly to buy it. Otherwise you may be stuck paying through the nose to speculators for anything half-way decent.

How to Buy a Domain Name Without A Broker

If you want to buy a .com or .org domain name without a broker, here is what to do. The only tricky part is having a permanent IP that you want your domain name directed to. You will have to get that from your ISP. Typically you would not keep your IP permanently, like your domain name. You would use it only for the time you are associated with a particular ISP. You are really borrowing one of his logically related IPs.

You don't have to host your website with the same ISP you get your Internet access from. Shop around for the best deal. Consider the ISP's reputation, speed of his servers and of course the costs of setup, the IP, disk storage, hits, cost of additional domain names going to the same server. Most ISP's will sell you a bundle, including the brokering to buy you the domain name. Some sites will host free if you post ads for them. I think this looks tacky.

To register, you need some server computer to service browser hits on your domain name. Further, you want to get your domain name out on the web, known, indexed in search engines etc. so that potential buyers of the domain name can find you.

  1. Check at http://rs.InterNIC.net/ that your .com domain name is not already taken. There are delays in the system. A name that appears to be free may not actually be free. It is first come, first served. Don't dawdle. My speculating friends have many a time lost a good name to others by waiting even a few hours to think it over.
  2. Click on Register a Domain Name.
  3. Fill in the New Domain Registration For field with your domain, e.g. orgasmatron.com. Don't include the www.
  4. Select new registration.
  5. .com names are for companies. Fill in the company name in the Organization Name field. .org names are for non-profit organisations such as charities.
  6. Fill in the Organization (Registrant) Information name and address. You will need to encode your country using the two letter codes shown above, e.g. US for the USA and CA for Canada.
  7. In the Administrative/Agent, Technical and Billing Contact information section, leave the NIC Handle fields blank, and click the provide contact information options. You will later be assigned a NIC handle e.g. RG9999 that you can use in place of filling in the contact information so you don't have to keep repeating the contact information four times for every domain you buy.
  8. In the Name Server section, for Primary Server Hostname fill in your new domain e.g. orgasmatron.com, that is presuming your ISP will set it up as a DNS server. You should get instruction from the ISP who will host your website on what to use.
  9. For the Primary Server net address fill in the permanent IP where this domain will be hosted, e.g. 127.0.0.99 This is the only tricky part. You will have to get this from your ISP. They will charge you for it. Because of the clerical overhead, you can't buy IP's singly, except from an ISP. It is possible to share the same IP among several domains.
  10. For Secondary Server Hostname fill in your ISP's domain, without the www, e.g. inter-corporate.com. You should get instruction from the ISP who will host your website on what to use.
  11. For the Secondary Server net address fill in the your ISP server's IP e.g. 127.0.0.100. You should get instruction from the ISP who will host your website on what to use.
  12. Leave the optional information blank.
  13. After you make your submission, InterNIC will send you an agreement via email, and you send it back to hostmaster@InterNIC.net. This process ping pongs back and forth with ever stronger confirmation that domain is yours until eventually they send you a bill and you pay it and they confirm the payment. Then the domain is really yours.
  14. Since you have 90 days to pay, many speculators "buy" hundreds of names. If they can't sell them in 90 days, they just let them lapse. This is not good for InterNIC since they have just as much processing cost as in a real sale. InterNIC often holds up sales for manual adjudication in an attempt to discourage this practice.
  15. For more details on how to register a domain name see the Registration Process Overview at InterNIC.
  16. Later you can return to http://rs.InterNIC.net/rs-internic.html to update any of the information. There are several schemes you can use to ensure that only you modify the records. See Updating Domain Name and Associated Records at InterNIC for details.



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