Quiz Of The Week: Internet Domain Names

Internet domain names © Dusit beboy Shutterstock 2012

London has its own domain name. But who owns ‘ahhhhhh.com’ and where is ‘.tv’?

Earlier this week, the first ‘.london’ domain names went live, giving businesses and organisations in the capital a chance to become more relevant to their customers in the city – at least that’s what supporters of the generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) initiative claim.

Internet users were previously limited to bland suffixes such as ‘.com’, ’.net’ and ‘.org’, but now there are more than 1,000 new gTLDs preparing to roll out, with just about any word capable of becoming a domain name.

Enter my domain

.uk domain name, Web address © Pavel Ignatov Shutterstock 2012However there’s more to the history of domain names than just gTLDs.

Court cases have been fought over the most valuable web addresses, while companies of all sizes have stockpiled some interesting domains – possibly as a result of boredom or a marketing manager’s whim, but most likely because of fear of domain squatters.

Perhaps we should be grateful. After all, a minor typo could result in us being directed to a very different website, although this could be a thing of the past with the ‘.xxx’ suffix.

What do you know about the web addresses we type into our browser daily without a second thought? Do you know your ‘.biz’ from your ‘.info’?

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