Take [kahoot.it](https://kahoot.it) for example, .it is a country level domain, and there’s no .com or .gov. How does that work?
Also, websites without a .country ending is assumed to be in the US. So, if it’s possible for a website to not have a .com level domain and the assumption is .us, then is it possible for a website to “not have any domain?”
In: 0
Top level domains are not as neatly organized as you might expect. They’re actually somewhat messy.
.com is for commercial organizations, not American commercial organizations. It’s also not regulated to stop non-commercial entities or individuals from using it.
It became associated mostly with the US for two reasons: first, the internet originated in the US and some other top-level domains (like .gov) are US-specific. Second, the .us domain was heavily over-regulated and cumbersome originally and saw very little take-up.
Country domains use two-letter codes and have differing degrees of regulation. The UK used to require second level domains – and so you still see .co.uk and .org.uk in common use despite top-level .uk domains being available for years now. Some countries require you to have a local presence while others do not.
Some countries took advantage of their country codes being attractive to foreigners – most notably the tiny island of Tuvalu who lucked out with the .tv suffix. They’ll let anyone have a .tv domain and it brings huge revenue to their economy.
>Also, websites without a .country ending is assumed to be in the US. So, if it’s possible for a website to not have a .com level domain and the assumption is .us, then is it possible for a website to “not have any domain?”
Kind of, but the cost for registering a top level domain is a few hundred thousand dollars. Microsoft have done it (you can try www.microsoft).
Latest Answers