What is a Top Level Domain? (TLD)
Unlike the rest of the English language, the hierarchy of domain names is organized from right to left. The general descriptors that come at the end of a domain are called top-level domains (TLDs).
Let’s take a look at some domain names:
- DreamHost.com
- Wikipedia.org
- USC.edu
- Gamesindustry.biz
- Sourceforge.net
In these examples, the TLDs would be ".com," ".org," ".edu," ".biz," and ".net." These are some of the most common TLDs. Most American web servers use three-letter TLDs, like ".com" or ".net," while many other countries use two-letter or two-letter combination country code TLDs (ccTLDs), like ".ca" for Canada or ".co.uk."
In more recent years, new generic top-level domains (ngTLDs) were introduced, which has opened the internet to a new world of possibilities for TLDs. You can customize these to indicate the purpose of your business or website, so you could have a domain name that ends in ".pizza" or ".sports."
Additionally, there are sponsored TLDs, or sTLD. A sponsored TLD is a specialized TLD that has a sponsor representing the community that is most affected by the TLD. For example, .gov is sponsored by the United States Government.