Hold onto your hats and let’s delve into the nitty-gritty of top-level domains. To successfully load a website, computers need to work through each section of a domain name to locate the data needed, starting with the top-level domain.
There are 13 root name servers that contain all the information for all of the gTLDs within that domain. For example, the name server for .com will contain information about amazon.com, but won’t contain any information regarding amazon.co.uk.
So who is responsible for managing top-level domains?
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) delegates the responsibility for the global coordination of domain names.
A non-profit corporation, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), is a department of ICANN. IANA assigns TLDs with IP addresses, which are vital for a domain to be discovered online.
What Types of Top-Level Domains Are There?
If you’ve been paying close attention, you’ll know that there are different types of internet domains, and you already know the answers to the following questions:
• What does gTLD stand for?
• What does ccTLD stand for?
Just in case you missed it the first time, gTLDs are generic top-level domains, and ccTLDs are country code top-level domains — geographical domains that are associated with a particular area in the world.
For example, the TLD .de is associated with Germany, .io with the British Indian Ocean Territory, and .us for the United States.
Generic top-level domains are the largest group of TLDs and account for most of the newly available domains. There are older, well-known gTLDs like .com, .net, and .org, and newer options, like .club, .accountant, and .pizza.
Ideal for companies and individuals, gTLDs can help you depict what your website actually does.