Top-Level Domains (TLDs)

In the [[DNS]] hierarchy, a top-level domain (TLD) represents the first stop after the root zone. In simpler terms, a TLD is everything that follows the final dot of a domain. For example, in the domain name ‘google.com’, ‘.com’ is the TLD.

Info

Some other popular TLDs include ‘.org’, ‘.uk’, and ‘.edu’.

There are 5 official types of TLDs:

  1. Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD) - most popular and familiar types of domain extensions, open for registration by anyone (com, net, biz, io)
  2. Sponsored Top-level Domains (sTLD) - proposed and supervised by private organizations (edu, gov, cat, travel)
  3. Country Code Top-level Domains (ccTLD) - used for specific countries and territories (us, es, co.uk, ch, ca)
  4. Infrastructure Top-Level Domain (ARPA) - only one TLD (ARPA), managed by IANA used for technical web infrastructure purposes.
  5. Test Top-Level Domains (tTLD) - reserved for documentation purposes and local testing (example, invalid, localhost, test)