Domain

A domain is the web address of a website. It consists of two parts: the name of the website and the domain extension.

• Google.com
• Facebook.com
• Amazon.com
• Netflix.com

These are all examples of domains with the “.com” part forming the Top Level Extension.

In the early 80s, if you wanted to access files on a server that was connected to the internet, you had to know the IP address of that server. In 1983 the Internet Engineering Taskforce introduced the Domain Name System (DNS) which could translate text into IP addresses, or in other words, associate an IP address with a domain name.

The first .com domain names to be registered were:

1. symbolics.com – Registered on March 15, 1985, by Symbolics, a computer manufacturer
2. bbn.com – Registered on April 24, 1985, by BBN Technologies
3. think.com – Registered on May 24, 1985, by Thinking Machines Corporation
4. mcc.com – Registered on July 11, 1985, by Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation
5. dec.com – Registered on September 30, 1985, by Digital Equipment Corporation
6. northrop.com – Registered on November 7, 1985, by Northrop Corporation
7. xerox.com – Registered on January 9, 1986, by Xerox Corporation
8. sri.com – Registered on January 17, 1986, by SRI International
9. hp.com – Registered on March 3, 1986, by Hewlett-Packard
10. bellcore.com – Registered on March 5, 1986, by Bell Communications Research

Incredibly, registering .com domains was free until 1995! Imagine what could have been if you were around in the 80s and had the foresight to register some generic words.

The first individual to register a .com domain was likely John Handley, who registered the domain jayne.com on February 24, 1986.

jayne.com was named after his wife, Jayne Handley. Today, the domain points to a parked page.

In the beginning there were only a handful of TLDs, each intended to serve a specific purpose. A .com was for commercial uses, a .org was for non-profits, .mil for defence, and .edu for education, amongst others.

It wasn’t until the year 2000 that new TLD domain extensions appeared.