What are the types of domains?
There is a hierarchy within the domain name registry that distinguishes domains from one another. In fact, there are different types of domains available:
Top-level domains: These are at the top of the internet hierarchy of domain names. You’ll see these commonly referred to as TLDs. There are over thousands of different TLDs available. For a full list of top-level domains, please check this page. You can check the price of your desired domain on our domain offer page. The two main categories are country code top-level domains (ccTLD) and generic top-level domains (gTLD).
Country code top-level domains (ccTLD): In order to distinguish one country from another, two-letter domains were established and became associated with countries or geographical locations, for example, .pl and .au represent Poland and Australia respectively.
Generic top-level domains (gTLD): Generic top-level domains function as a category of top-level domains within the DNS. As of now, there are over 1,500 gTLDs in use. Some of the most common gTLDs include:
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- .com: short for commercial, .com was the first top-level domain in common use. While .com was initially created for use by commercial organizations, restrictions on this were not stringent, and it had become the most popular and commonly used type of top-level domain for businesses, websites, and email.
- .net: short for network, .net was created expressly for institutes that took part in network technologies such as an internet service provider or an infrastructure company. Like with .com, .net restrictions were not followed and it became one of the most popular top-level domains.
- .edu: short for education, .edu was made for education institutions. It became associated with only educational centers in America. Schools from other countries use it in conjunction with the country-level domain.
- .org: short for organization, .org was created for nonprofits. These days .org is used as a top-level domain by nonprofits, for-profit businesses, schools, and communities.
Second-level domains (SLD): second-level domains are domains registered directly under the top-level domains. For example, in Poland:
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- .com.pl (short for commercial)
- .org.pl (short for organization)
- .net.pl (short for network)
- .edu.pl (short for education)
- .biz.pl (short for business )
- .med.pl (shot for medicine)
Third-level domains: These are referred to as subdomains. The structure of such a domain will develop analogously to the left of the domain with a higher level (SLD), for example: any_name.com.pl
NASK domains: The Polish domain name registry is operated by NASK (research and academic computer network). NASK oversee the management of the Polish domain name registry and all Polish domain names are registered via them. Polish domains are intended for entities connected with Poland. Registrations can be made directly at the second level, or at the third level beneath various second-level labels. The .pl domain name is highly popular in Poland, and it is the Internet country code top-level domain. Some of the best known polish domains are:
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- .art.pl: intended for artistic usage.
- .biz.pl: for commerce.
- .com.pl: for commerce.
- .edu.pl: intended for educational entities.
- .gov.pl: for the government of Poland.
- .info.pl: for information purposes.
- .mil.pl: principally for military use.
- .net.pl: intended for entities dealing with network infrastructure.
- .org.pl: intended for non-governmental organisations.
- .ngo.pl: intended for non-governmental organisations.
Other popular domain names are related to cities in Poland such as:
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- .waw.pl: Warsaw
- .warszawa.pl: Warsaw
- .czest.pl: Częstochowa
- .pulawy.pl: Puławy
EURid domains: The European Union domain name registry is operated by EURid. All European Union domain names are registered via them, and the European Commission oversees the management of the European Union domain name registry. Launched in 2006 the .eu domain represents the European region as a whole and has been tremendously successful. Bearing in mind the size of the European Union, and the number of countries this body contains, it is predicted the .eu domain name will become the second most popular domain name after .com addresses. In order to register a .eu domain with us, please follow the EURid rules.