Rules for global domain registrants

Do you know the rules when registering a new domain name?

Everyone can learn something by browsing the following rules before purchasing new domains. These rules can change at any time but they tend to be rather stable, over time.

There are two types of domains explored here, the gTLDs and the ccTLDs. The first being general and the second being country-specific. Only a sample of countries were considered for this post.

 

General domain name suffixes

.COM, .NET and .ORG Domain Names

• .COM – to be used for commercial and personal sites
• .NET – recommended for companies involved in Internet infrastructure
• .ORG – recommended for not-for-profit organizations
• Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen (“-”)?†
• Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
• Must have less than 63 characters, not including .COM, .NET and .ORG

.INFO Domain Names

• .INFO – to be used for both commercial and personal sites
• Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen (“-”)
• Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
• Must have at least 3 characters and less than 63 characters, not including .INFO

.BIZ Domain Names

• .BIZ – sites restricted to commercial and bona fide business purposes
• Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen (“-”)
• Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
• Cannot have two hyphens in a row
• Must have at least 3 characters and less than 63 characters, not including .BIZ

.NAME Domain Names

• .NAME – to be used for personal sites
• Must be composed of a first and last name (yourname1.yourname2.name)
• First name (yourname1 in above example) must have at least 1 character and no more than 63 characters
• Second name (yourname2 in above example) must have at least 3 characters and no more than 63 characters
• Use only letters, numbers or hyphen (“-”)
• Cannot begin or end with a hyphen

 

Country specific domain name suffixes

.BE Domain Names

• .BE – Belgium, to be used for commercial and personal sites
• Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen (“-”)
• Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
• Must have at least 2 characters, not including .BE

.CA Domain Names

• .CA registrants must meet Canadian presence requirements as defined by CIRA (Canadian Internet Registration Authority)
• Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen (“-”)
• Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
• Domain names must be not less than two (2) and not greater than fifty (50) characters long.

.CC Domain Names

• .CC – Cocos (Keeling) Islands, to be used for commercial and personal sites
• Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen (“-”)
• Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
• Cannot contain all numbers
• Must have at least 3 characters, but less than 47, not including .CC

.CO.UK and .ORG.UK Domain Names

• .CO.UK – United Kingdom TLD used for both commercial and personal sites
• .ORG.UK – United Kingdom TLD used for both commercial and personal sites
• Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen (“-”)
• Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
• Must have at least 3 characters, but less than 23, not including .CO.UK and .ORG.UK

.DE Domain Names

• .DE – Germany, to be used for commercial and personal sites
• Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen (“-”)
• Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
• Must have at least 3 characters, but less than 64, not including .DE

.DK Domain Names

• .DK – Denmark, to be used for commercial and personal sites
• Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen (“-”)
• Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
• Must have less than 23 characters, not including .DK

.FM Domain Names

• .FM – Micronesia, to be used for commercial and personal sites
• Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen (“-”)
• Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
• Must have less than 23 characters, not including .FM

.JP Domain Names

• .JP – Japan, to be used for commercial and personal sites
• Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen (“-”)
• Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
• Must have at least 3 characters, but less than 63, not including .jp

.MS, .VG, .TC, .GS and .TF Domain Names

• .MS – Montserrat, to be used for both commercial and personal sites
• .VG – British Virgin Islands, to be used for both commercial and personal sites
• .TC – Turks and Caicos Islands, to be used for both commercial and personal sites
• .GS – South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands, to be used for both commercial and personal sites
• .TF – French Southern Territories, to be used for both commercial and personal sites
• Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen (“-”)
• Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
• Must have less than 23 characters, not including .MS, .VG, .TC, .GS and .TF

.NZ Domain Names

• .CO.NZ – New Zealand, intended organizations pursuing commercial aims & purposes
• .NET.NZ – New Zealand, intended organizations or services providers related to the NZ internet
• .ORG.NZ – New Zealand, intended for non-profit organizations
• Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen (“-”)
• Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
• Must have less than 23 characters, not including .CO.NZ, .ORG.NZ, and .NET.NZ

.TO Domain Names

• .TO – Tonga, to be used for commercial and personal sites
• Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen (“-”)
• Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
• Must have less than 23 characters, not including .TO

.TV Domain Names

• .TV – Tuvalu, to be used for commercial and personal sites
• Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen (“-”)
• Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
• Must have less than 63 characters, not including .TV

.US Domain Names

• .US – to be used by U.S. citizens and residents, U.S. corporations and other U.S. organizations and organizations with a presence within the United States
• Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen (“-”)
• Domain names cannot begin or end with a hyphen
• Domain names must be longer than 2 characters and cannot exceed 63 characters (this does not include the extension)

.VU Domain Names

• .VU – Vanuatu, to be used for commercial and personal sites
• Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen (“-”)
• Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
• Must have less than 27 characters, not including .VU

.WS Domain Names

• .WS – WebSite, to be used for commercial and personal sites
• Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen (“-”)
• Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
• .WS domains registered through register.com‚Ñ¢ must have between 4 and 59 characters, not including the .WS extension

If you only have .coms in your domain name portfolio, make sure to check out the “local variations” for your major domains. As such, having “timely-meetings-software.com” might work nicely for an international audience but having .ca, .co.uk and even .co.nz might bring back positives results if you also cater to those countries.

It’s important to note that ccTLDs are gaining popularity worldwide. The latest example is the .us boom.

It’s better to buy -before- the boom than after!