What is com us?
US.COM , the country code domain extension (ccTLD) for the United States of America, is the logical choice for companies targeting the American market.
In this article, you’ll find everything you need to know about the mighty .com, such as ‘What does .com stand for?’ and ‘What is a domain name anyway?’. Soon you’ll know so much that you’ll be bursting to buy a .com, so let’s get started.
Once upon a time in the 1980s, there were six original top-level domains (TLDs). Each had one true purpose, a category. The top-level domain .edu stood for education, .org stood for organizations, and so on.
But what does the extension mean? What is the .definition of .com? Well, the meaning of .com was ‘commercial’ and was intended for use by commercial organizations.
Nowadays, the rules aren’t so strict and domains can mostly be used by anyone, for any purpose. There are new TLDs that are more focused. For example, if you create a range of health supplements and want to sell them online, you might choose .health, or if you run a recruitment agency you might pick a .work
Examples of the new TLDs: .delivery, .dentist, .desi, .direct, .doctor, .earth, .fans, .fit, .tube.
Whatever industry you work in, don’t forget that if you’re looking for a cheap domain, we offer a huge range of exciting TLDs right here at Namecheap.
The domain .com is operated by the registry Verisign. As well as being the registry that owns the .com domain, Verisign also provides the .tv and .net TLD, .cc domains, and other popular options for registrars like Namecheap to offer customers like you.
Let’s head back to 1985 when .com was introduced to help in the organization of the World Wide Web.
Interestingly, MIT Internet pioneer Jack Haverty, believes that .com originally ‘…derived from “company” rather than “commercial”. He went onto explain that at the start they were for companies doing government contract work.
Despite these beginnings, the meaning behind .com and any website that uses it has changed. Today .com is the most well-established domain and a trusted choice for businesses and individuals across the globe.
The first domain name was a .com! Symbolics.com was registered on March 15, 1985, to computer manufacturer Symbolics, Inc. A whopping 25 years later, it was sold in 2009 to XF.com Investments.
We’ve already found out that .com top-level domain stands for ‘commercial’. It’s one of the world’s most popular domains, and is used by organizations around the world.
According to Verisign, (at the time of writing this blog in June 2020), there are 148,500,484 registered .com domains. It’s a universally recognized domain and invokes trust, so if you’re looking for a new domain, it would be wise to pick a .com.
Now that you’ve found out more about this popular domain, (and are likely excited to register it), you’re probably wondering ‘How much is a .com TLD?’
Like any domain, the price of .COM will vary, depending on what domain you’re buying, and how you’re buying it.
If it’s a popular domain that uses common keywords and phrases, it’s likely to have a high price tag, due to demand.
You might buy your .com domain through a registrar, or you might buy it through an auction if the domain is owned by someone. If a domain is listed at auction, it may have a premium tag, which means that it’s available at a higher price than usual.
Learn more by checking out our articles on subjects like website domain cost and the average cost to transfer a domain name.
Well, .com sites are as reliable as any other site. Imagine you’re looking for a tech company to help you create a new e-commerce store. Whether the store has used a .io extension or a .ai URL extension, you will base your decision on how easily you found them, whether you find their website trustworthy, online reviews, and if they offer everything you’re looking for.
You may be asking yourself, but is .com still the best? There are so many out there, it’s hard to say, but we can agree that King .com continues to be one of the most popular domains on the planet.
As .com is a popular and well-known domain, it’s the ideal choice for ranking well internationally.
If a user wants to rank exclusively in a specific geographical location, it may be wise to choose the ccTLD or GeoTLD for that area.
However, understanding and establishing user intent is important. If a pizza recipe blog is written in English, and the intent is that it’s to be used internationally then .com is a good choice.
However, if you own a pizzeria in NY, it may be better to use a ccTLD to reflect where the pizza can be ordered, such as .nyc or .us, (or even the gTLD, .pizza!).
If you like what you’ve read and want to get your hands on a .com domain, then good news — you can get one from us!
One thing to note is that as you know by now, .com is one of the oldest extensions, and therefore a lot of domains have already been snapped up.
Don’t worry, there are still lots of ways to get your hands on your dream domain.
If you would like to know more about domain registration, read our handy blog post, How to Register a Domain Name.
The domain com is a top-level domain (TLD) in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. Created in the first group of Internet domains at the beginning of 1985, its name is derived from the word commercial, indicating its original intended purpose for subdomains registered by commercial organizations. Later, the domain opened for general purposes.
The domain was originally administered by the United States Department of Defense, but is today operated by Verisign, and remains under ultimate jurisdiction of U.S. law. The .com domain is also more commonly used than the more specific .us by American businesses and enterprises. Verisign registrations in the .com domain are processed via registrars accredited by ICANN. The registry accepts internationalized domain names.
The domain was one of the original top-level domains (TLDs) of the Internet when the Domain Name System was implemented in January 1985, the others being edu, gov, mil, net, org, and int. It has grown into the largest top-level domain, and has lent its name to the dot-com bubble, the era of the late 1990s during which excessive speculation in Internet-related concepts and companies led to rapid growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. By 2001 it led to a stock market bubble and crash of company valuations and stock pricing.
The domain com was one of the first set of top-level domains when the Domain Name System was first implemented for the Internet on January 1, 1985. The domain was administered by the U.S. Department of Defense, but the department contracted the domain maintenance to SRI International. SRI created DDN-NIC, also known as SRI-NIC, or simply the NIC (Network Information Center), then accessible online with the domain name nic.ddn.mil. Beginning October 1, 1991, an operations contract was awarded to Government Systems Inc. (GSI), which sub-contracted it to Network Solutions Inc. (NSI).
On January 1, 1993, the National Science Foundation assumed responsibility of maintenance, as com was primarily being used for non-defense interests. The NSF contracted operation to Network Solutions (NSI). In 1995, the NSF authorized NSI to begin charging registrants an annual fee for the first time since the domain's inception. Initially, the fee was US$50 (equivalent to $96 in 2022) per year, with US$35 going to NSI, and US$15 going to a government fund. New registrations had to pay for the first two years, making the new-domain registration fee US$100. In 1997, the United States Department of Commerce assumed authority over all generic TLDs. It is currently operated by Verisign, which had acquired Network Solutions. Verisign later spun off Network Solutions' non-registry functions into a separate company that continues as a registrar. In the English language, the domain is often spelled with a leading period and commonly pronounced as dot-com, and has entered common parlance this way.
Although com domains were initially intended to designate commercial entities, the domain has had no restrictions for eligible registrants since the mid-1990s. With the commercialization and popularization of the Internet, the domain was opened to the public and quickly became the most common top-level domain for websites, email, and networking. Many companies that flourished in the period from 1997 to 2001—the time known as the "dot-com bubble"—incorporated the label com into company names; these became known as dot-coms or dot-com companies. The introduction of domain biz in 2001, which was aimed at companies that failed to register a suitable com-domain name, intended to make customers realize that they had arrived at a legitimate business website, although it did not achieve widespread use.
Although companies anywhere in the world can register com domains, many countries have a second-level domain with a similar purpose under their country code top-level domain (ccTLD), such as Australia (com.au), China (com.cn), Greece (com.gr), Israel (co.il), India (co.in), Indonesia (co.id), Japan (co.jp), Mexico (com.mx), Nepal (.com.np), South Korea (co.kr), Sri Lanka (com.lk), United Kingdom (co.uk), and Vietnam (.com.vn).
Many non-commercial sites and networks use com names to benefit from the perceived recognizability of a com domain. However, the registration statistics show varying popularity over the years.
In December 2011, Verisign reported that approximately 100 million com domains were registered. According to the Domain Name Industry Brief published in March 2020, which publishes every quarter, com domain registration totaled 145.4 million. As of March 2009, Verisign reported that 926 accredited registrars serve the domain.
On November 29, 2012, the U.S. Department of Commerce approved the renewal of the com Registry Agreement between Verisign, Inc., and ICANN. Through this agreement, Verisign managed the com registry until November 30, 2018.
The following are the 100 oldest still-existing registered com domains.
