Register Your Domain Names Now

How Top Level Domains Work ... Plus the Latest Regulations

The following is a list of rules of each registry. Please note that this list may not be a complete list and that each registry may adopt additional rules from time to time. Domain Names have a variety of basic rules:

.COM, .NET and .ORG Domain Names

.COM - 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. .com, .net and .org domain names exceeding a total of 26 characters are supported by most web browsers. However, certain web browsers, email programs and other Internet related applications may not support domain names over 26 characters.

.INFO - 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 - 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 - 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. Note** Not available for new registration.

Country-Specific Extensions

.SH - St. Helena -To be used for both commercial and personal sites

.AC - Ascension Island - 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, but less than 23, not including .AC and .SH

.AS - American Samoa - 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 23, not including .AS

.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 - 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. Length. Domain names must be not less than two (2) and not greater than fifty (50) characters long.

.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.IL - Israel, to be used for commercial and personal sites

.ORG.IL - Israel, to be used for commercial and personal sites
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-") Cannot begin or end with a hyphen. Must have as few as three and as many as 62 characters, not including .IL No more than 10 domain names may be registered by any individual or organization.

.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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - 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

.KZ - Kazakstan, 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 .KZ

.LT - Lithuania, 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 23, not including .LT

.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

.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

.PH and .COM.PH - Philippines, to be used for commercial and personal sites.
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-"). Cannot begin or end with a hyphen. Must have as few as three and as many as 62 characters, not including .com.ph or .ph

.RO, .COM.RO - Romania, 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 .RO

.ST(SiTe) - São Tomé and Principe, to be used for commercial and personal sites
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-"). Cannot begin or end with a hyphen. Must have as few as one and as many as 23 characters, not including .ST

.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 - 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 - 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)

.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 must have as few as four and as many as 63 characters, not including the .WS extension

.CO.ZA - South Africa, 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 .ZA

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