Domain TLD's- The Original Seven

A TLD or Top Level Domain, sometimes known as a top-level domain name (TLDN), is the last part of a web address after the last dot. Two examples of a Top Level Domain are .com and .net. These are two of the most common TLD's, other common TLD's include, .org, .biz, and .gov. The following are the original TLD's registered for the pupose of the public, and some private sectors.

.COM
This extension is the most widely used generic top-level domain on the Internet’s Domain Name System, with over 75 million dot com (Commerce) domains registered. One of the original top-level domains, it was first established in January of 1985. The United States Department of Defense was the original administrator, and for many years the responsibility of administering the .com domain changed hands under the flag of the government. In 1995 registration fees began and its current operation is under VeriSign. .COM Domains were originally intended for commercial purposes, but no restrictions exist on who can register a .com, and it can be used for any purpose. On March 15, 1985 symbolics.com was the first .com registered. NYNEXST was the one hundredth .com registered on November 30, 1987.

.NET
The third most used gTLD (Generic Top Level Domain) on the Internet today (.com and .de are top two) .net (Network) was registered in January of 1985. Originally intended for Internet Service Providers, it currently has no restrictions, and anyone can register a .net tld for any purpose. VeriSign is the current operator of .net. Very similar in use to .com, it may be used by a company who already has the .com as their primary address, and uses .net as a secondary. It is also widely registered by people who want a specific domain that has already been registered as a .com domain.

.ORG
Originally intended for organizations that didn’t meet the requirements of the other TLD’s, .org (Organization) was created for the Domain Name System in January of 1985. Anyone can register an .org with no restrictions, although .org domains have come to represent non-profit organizations. A commercial enterprise could theoretically be launched under this tld, but better options, like .com and .net exist. Since the beginning of 2003 operation of .org has been run by Public Interest Registry. Some of the world’s political and diplomatic organizations use this tld. In July of 1985 mitre.org was the first .org domain registered.

.EDU
Established in January of 1985 as one of the seven original tld’s, .edu (Education) was established to be used by the world’s educational institutes. This tld is restricted in its use, only after proving your institute or organization’s accreditation to Educause, the non-profit that operates the closed .edu system, can you use this tld. This tld is overseen by the U.S. Department of Commerce. The following six-.edu tld’s were the first edu’s registered on April 24, 1985: Columbia.edu, Berkeley.edu, CMU.edu, Purdue.edu, Rice.edu, UCLA.edu.

.GOV
Used by the United States Federal Government, .gov (Government) tld was registered in January of 1985 to be used specifically by U.S. Government agencies. All governments in the U.S., both state and local, can apply to use the .gov tld at dotgov.gov. To register a .gov domain, a letter of authorization must be submitted to the General Services Administration, the registrar of this domain, and the reqirements must be met.

.MIL
One of the original seven tld’s, this top level domain was registered in January of 1985, and .mil (Military) was designed to be used by The United States Department of Defense and all its susidiaries. The registration and operation of this domain falls to the Defense Information Systems Agency, a organization with many fuctions, under the banner of the Department of Defense.

.INT
The seventh original gTLD established January 1985, .int (International) tld operates for internatonal peace keeping operations, and United Nation based entities, on the Domain Name System. The .int tld is operated by Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), a division of ICANN.

The Domain Biz

Now a days anyone looking to increase their income must look to the vast arena of Internet marketing as a serious possibility for additional income streams. Within this enormous, emerging subject, the domain industry is at the for front. Many men and women make their livings buying and selling domains and some have made quite a few million. The domain industry is a multi-billion dollar network of sites, blogs and portfolios that will continue to play an ever increasing role in any Internet marketer's business building strategy.

So what exactly is the domain industry? Well the first thing a budding entrepreneur needs to do when starting a new web site is to register a domain. This domain will be the identity of your new venture so it is crucial to get the perfect domain name. If your business intends to sell exotic birds, you obviously don't want a domain name like buycats.com. With that being said, what if you want to build your brand around the perfect, buybirds.com? Well the first thing to do is go to a registrar and see if the name is available. Most likely buybirds.com is already taken. This does not mean you can't get buybirds.com, it only means someone has already registered it. You may still be able to contact the owner of the domain and have him sell it to you. Now a days most of the "good" domains have already been registered. So if your looking for a specific domain you best look in whats called the domain name aftermarket.

The Domain Name Aftermarket is the place to look when wanting to purchase a domain or domains that have already been registered. Many sites sell thousands of domains, some highly valuable, some no more than worthless. In this market, most buy these registered domains with no intention of ever developing them. What will happen is a professional domainer will buy a domain that already has traffic and just "park" the site with a ppc click engine, most of the time Google Adsense. The traffic normally can come from two different factors. The first is if the domain was a preexisting site, it may have traffic left over from old clients or fresh traffic from up to date links. The second factor is if the domain receives direct navigation traffic. This is when if I were wanting to look into birds let's say, instead of going to a search engine and looking up birds that way, I directly type birds.com into my address bar. Domains like this could potentially receive thousands of free hits each month.

The Sultan will be focusing on The Domain Industry and all that lies within it in this upcoming week. Stay tuned for all the latest tips and news in the exciting domain biz. By next week you will be an expert on everything that is domains.