An internet address (domain) consists of several parts, one of which is the domain extension, also referred to as a top-level domain (TLD). There are different types of TLDs, for example, .co.uk is a country-specific domain. A gTLD, on the other hand, is an in­ter­na­tion­al extension. An example of this is, .com, which stands for, com­mer­cial, and is the most common gTLD. All TLDs are part of the Domain Name System, which is like an internet address book. But what dif­fer­en­ti­ates gTLDs from other top-level domains and how are they clas­si­fied?

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Country-specific and generic top-level domains

Domain ex­ten­sions are divided into two cat­egor­ies: gTLDs and ccTLDs. Known examples of generic TLDs besides .com are .net, .org, and .info. The ccTLDs (cc = ‘country code’), however, are used as country-specific top-level domains (e.g. .us for the USA and .uk for the UK). A generic top-level domain covers a thematic field rather than a geo­graph­ic­al field: for example, .org stands for ‘or­gan­isa­tion’ and generally refers to nonprofit or­gan­isa­tions. The .info gTLD lets you know that the website is of an in­form­at­ive nature. Unlike ccTLDs,  gTLDs always consist of at least three letters. In the early days of the internet, there were only a handful of generic top-level domains. In January 1985 .com, .org, .net, .edu, .gov, .int and .mil as well as .arpa were in­tro­duced as the first gTLDs with the first ccTLDs following in the same year. There are now hundreds of generic domain ex­ten­sions due to the gradual in­tro­duc­tion of new gTLDs.

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Sponsored vs. non-sponsored gTLDs

Generic TLDs can be divided into two cat­egor­ies: sponsored and non-sponsored top-level domains. To obtain an internet address with a sponsored TLD, certain re­quire­ments must be fulfilled. These con­di­tions are de­term­ined by the sponsors (companies or or­gan­isa­tions) that are also re­spons­ible for mon­it­or­ing guidelines and general man­age­ment of their TLD. Some examples of sponsored domain ex­ten­sions are .gov (for US gov­ern­ment in­sti­tu­tions), .int (for in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­isa­tions), and .jobs (for company job offers). The non-sponsored TLDs, on the other hand, are monitored and managed centrally. ICANN Internet Cor­por­a­tion for Assigned Names and Numbers) is primarily re­spons­ible for these and works together with various partners. When the first non-sponsored TLDs were in­tro­duced, it was ori­gin­ally planned for them only to be purchased under certain con­di­tions. Like sponsored gTLDs, they should denote a clear frame of reference for websites: .com was initially only available for companies, .net was intended for internet service providers, and .pro for pro­fes­sion­al use in various oc­cu­pa­tions. These plans, however, were gradually dropped and now almost every non-sponsored gTLD is available for in­di­vidu­als, busi­nesses, or­gan­isa­tions, etc. to use.

Overview of tra­di­tion­al gTLDs

Due to the mass approval of new TLDs, there is now a large amount of generic domain ex­ten­sions that is hard to overlook. For ad­di­tion­al in­form­a­tion about TLDs that have been re­gistered recently, see our article on the new gTLDs. The two tables below provide an overview of classic generic top-level domains, divided into sponsored and non-sponsored cat­egor­ies.

.arpa isn’t listed as a domain extension because it’s an exception. It was in­tro­duced in the Domain Name System as a first TLD in 1985. At the beginning it served to transmit hostname con­ven­tions of the ARPANET (the internet’s pre­de­cessor) in the Domain Name System. Nowadays .arpa is ex­clus­ively used for technical in­fra­struc­ture purposes, which is why the TLD is not available to the public and you can’t register domains using it.

Non-sponsored generic top-level domains

Top-level domain Year of in­tro­duc­tion (ori­gin­ally) intended for
.com (com­mer­cial) 1985 (US) Busi­nesses
.org (or­gan­iz­a­tion) 1985 Nonprofit or­gan­iz­a­tions
.net (network) 1985 Internet providers
.info 2001 In­form­a­tion services (but available to all)
.biz (business) 2001 Busi­nesses
.name 2001 Private in­di­vidu­als
.pro (pro­fes­sion­al) 2004 Specific pro­fes­sions
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Sponsored generic top-level domains

Top-level domain Year of in­tro­duc­tion Au­thor­ised users/ intended for
.gov (gov­ern­ment) 1985 US Gov­ern­ment au­thor­it­ies
.edu (edu­ca­tion­al) 1985 Or­gan­isa­tions of the edu­ca­tion­al system (limited to US edu­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions since 2001)
.mil (military) 1985 US Military
.int (in­ter­na­tion­al) 1988 In­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­isa­tions
.aero (aero­naut­ics) 2001 Aviation industry
.coop (co­oper­at­ives) 2001 Co­oper­at­ives
.museum 2001 Museums
.cat (catalan) 2005 Sup­port­ers/Users of the Catalan language and culture
.jobs 2005 Company job ad­vert­ise­ments
.mobi (mobile) 2005 For mobile-optimised websites
.tel (tele­com­mu­nic­a­tion) 2005 Present­a­tion of the domain owner’s contact details
.travel 2005 People, companies, and or­gan­isa­tions in the travel industry
.asia 2007 People, companies, and or­gan­isa­tions from the Asian/Pacific region
.xxx 2011 Erotic/por­no­graph­ic content
.post 2012 Members of the Universal Postal Union

gTLDs: domain ex­ten­sions with a history and a future

Generic top-level domains represent an important technical corner­stone for the internet and have existed since the beginning of the web. They will continue to play a major role in domain al­loc­a­tion in the future. It can be assumed that generic TLDs that have es­tab­lished them­selves in the last few decades, will also still be relevant in the future.

The amount of remaining site addresses that end in popular TLDs such as .com, .org, and .net is con­tinu­ally de­creas­ing. The same applies to country-specific TLDs, as can be seen from the following in­fograph­ics about the .com domain. Given the massive pop­ular­ity of top-level domains like .com, .info, and .uk, these new al­tern­at­ives have now become un­avoid­able. 

Click here to download the in­fograph­ic on the history of the .com domain. Thanks to these new gTLDs, the most sought-after domains are now available with an al­tern­at­ive ending. 

For many website operators, this allows them to get one step closer to their perfect domain.

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