Generic TLD

Abbreviation For

Authority

Current Use / Description

.AERO

Aerospace

Société Internationale de Télécommunications Aéronautiques (SITA)

Members of the aerospace industry, such as airlines and airports. (Yes, that is French!)

.ARPA

Address
and Routing Parameter Area

Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) / Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)

First defined as a temporary domain for migration from the older host table system, the “ARPA” of course originally stood for the Advanced Research Projects Agency, creators of the predecessors of the Internet. Today, the .ARPA domain is used for internal Internet management purposes; the abbreviation at left was, I believe, “manufactured” to fit the letters “ARPA”. J The best-known use of this domain is for reverse DNS lookups.

.BIZ

Business

NeuLevel, Inc.

Businesses. Intended as a competitor to .COM.

.COM

Commercial Organizations

VeriSign Global Registry Services

Originally intended for corporations and other commercial interests, .COM is also widely used for other purposes, including small businesses and even individuals who like the popularity of the .COM domain.

.COOP

Cooperative Associations

Dot Cooperation LLC

Cooperative associations.

.EDU

Education

Educause

Originally intended for all types of educational organizations, now used only for degree-granting higher education institutions accredited in the United States. Other educational institutions such as public schools usually use the country code TLDs.

.GOV

Government

US General Services Administration

Reserved for the United States federal government.

.INFO

Information

Afilias Limited

A very generic TLD designed for information resources of various sorts. It is unrestricted, in that anyone can register any sort of organization in .INFO. Also positioned as an alternative to .COM.

.INT

International

IANA .int Domain Registry

Used only for large organizations established by international treaty.

.MIL

Military

US DoD Network Information Center

Reserved for the United States military.

.MUSEUM

Museum

Museum Domain Management Association

Take a guess. J

.NAME

Names

Global Name Registry

In the original generic hierarchy there was no place set aside for individuals to register names for themselves, so people would instead create domains like “jonesfamily.org”. This was non-ideal so .NAME was created as a place for individuals and families to register a domain for their names. .NAME also competes with the country code TLDs.

.NET

Network

VeriSign Global Registry Services

This TLD was supposed to be used only for Internet service providers and other organizations working intimately with the Internet or networking. Due to the exhaustion of name space in .COM and .ORG, many .NET domains are registered to other organizations, however.

.ORG

Organizations

Public Interest Registry

Originally intended for organizations not fitting into the other generic TLDs, .ORG quickly became associated with professional and non-profit organizations. It is possible, however, to have a for-profit company use a .ORG name.

.PRO

Professional

RegistryPro

Reserved for credentialed professionals such as lawyers and doctors.