Domain hack

Adomain hackis adomain namethat suggests a word, phrase, or name whenconcatenatingtwo or more adjacent levels of that domain.For example,bir.dsandexamp.le,using the fictitious country-code domains.dsand.le,suggest the wordsbirdsandexamplerespectively. In this context, the wordhackdenotes a clever trick (as inprogramming), not an exploit or break-in (as insecurity).

Domain hacks offer the ability to produce short domain names. This makes them potentially valuable as redirectors,pastebins,base domains from which to delegatesubdomainsandURL shorteningservices.

History

On November 23, 1992,inter.netwas registered.In the 1990s, severalhostnamesending in "pla.net" were active. The concept of spelling out a phrase with the parts of ahostnameto form a domain hack became well established.On Friday, May 3, 2002,icio.uswas registered to createdel.icio.us.Delicious would later gain control of the delicio.us domain, which had beenparkedsince April 24, 2002, the day the.us ccTLD (country code top-level domain) was opened to second-level registrations.

Who.isis awhoislookup service, indicating the registered ownership information of a domain. It was established June 12, 2002 and registered to an address inReykjavík,Iceland.

Examples

On January 14, 2004, theChristmas Island Internet Administrationrevoked.cxdomain registration forshock sitegoatse.cx,a domain which used "se.cx" to form the word "sex".The domain was originally registered in 1999. Similar names had been used for parody sites such as oralse.cx or analse.cx; in some cases,.cz(Czech Republic) or.kz(Kazakhstan) are substituted for.cx.

The termdomain hackwas coined byMatthew Doucetteon November 3, 2004 to mean "an unconventional domain name that uses parts other than the SLD (second level domain) or third level domain to create the title of the domain name."

Yahoo!acquiredblo.gson June 14, 2005, anddel.icio.uson December 9, 2005.

On September 11, 2007,name serversfor.mewere delegated byIANAto the Government ofMontenegro,with a two-year transition period for existing.yunames to be transferred to.me.One of the first steps taken in deploying.meonline was to create.its.meas a domain space for personal sites.Many potential domain hacks, such aslove.meandbuy.me,were held back by the registry as premium names for later auction. One.me domain hack example isplease.do.not.disturb.me.

On December 15, 2009,Googlelaunched its ownURL shortenerunder the domaingoo.glusing the ccTLD ofGreenland.YouTubesubsequently launchedyoutu.beusing the ccTLD ofBelgium.In 2015 Google used the domain hack abc.xyz for their newly launchedAlphabet Inc.

Working withBit.ly,The New York Timeslaunched an URL shortener in late 2009 under the domainnyti.msusing the ccTLD ofMontserrat.The need to serve shorter URLs forTwitterwas cited as a reason for the shortener.

In March 2010,National Public Radiolaunched its own URL shortener under the domainn.prusing the ccTLD ofPuerto Rico.The n.pr domain is currently used to link to an NPR story page by its ID and is one of the shortest possible domain hacks.

In late 2010,Applelaunched a URL shortener at the domainitun.es,using the ccTLD ofSpain,in a similar move to Google's goo.gl. Unlike goo.gl, which was public and could be used for any web address, itun.es is used only foriTunes PingURL shortening.

Spotify also uses theURL Shortenerspoti.fi,using the ccTLD ofFinland,to link to artist, partners, playlists, albums and songs. Flickr usesflic.krfor their URL shortening, using the ccTLD ofSouth Korea.ta.coredirects toTaco Bell’sofficial website.In 2006,Red Bull GmbHregistered the domainwin.gsto use for shortened URLs.

International examples

In most cases, registration of these short domain names relies on the use ofcountry code top-level domains(ccTLDs), each of which has a unique two-letter identifier.

For example,blo.gsmakes use of the ccTLD.gs(South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands) to spell "blogs",fa.stmakes use of the ccTLD.st(São Tomé and Príncipe) to spell "fast",everyo.neuses the ccTLD.ne(Niger) to spell "everyone",instagr.ammakes use of the ccTLD.am(Armenia) to spell the name of photo-sharing service "Instagram",darkvir.ususes ccTLD.us(United States) and sharing it for subdomains with free hosting,Cityne.wsmakes use of the ccTLD.ws(West Samoa) to spell the name of Italian newspaper "Citynews",tel.lyuses ccTLD.ly(Libya) to spell "telly" (a popular British colloquial term for television), and some ofDanbooru-style imageboardsthat end their name with '-booru'suffixmay use the ccTLD.ru(Russia) to spell their own name.

Many people use domain hacks for their name to serve their personal website. Some prominent examples include:rome.ro(John Romero),melan.ie(Melanie C),sive.rs(Derek Sivers) andnav.al(Naval Ravikant).

Domain hacking is not limited to singular words. For example,helpmelearn.ituses the ccTLD forItalyto write out "help me learn it". While there is technically no restriction, these domain hacks tend to limit themselves to using only ccTLDs that are words in-and-of-itself, such as the aforementioned Italy as well asIceland(.is) andMontenegro(.me)

Thethird-level domainsdel.icio.us,cr.yp.toande.xplo.itmake use of theSLDsicio.us,yp.toandxplo.itfrom the ccTLDs.us(United States),.to(Tonga) and.it(Italy) to spell "delicious", "crypto" and "exploit" respectively.

In some cases, an entire ccTLD has been re-purposed in its international marketing, such as.am(Armenia),.fm(Federated States of Micronesia),.cd(Democratic Republic of the Congo),.dj(Djibouti), and.tv(Tuvalu) for sites delivering various forms of audiovisual content.

Somefeline-related websites, such asnyan.cathave used the.catdomain, which is meant for theCatalan linguistical community.

Libya'sccTLD (.ly) has been used for English words that end with suffix "ly", such as sil.ly or formermusical.ly.Popular URL shortening servicesbit.ly,brief.ly, name.ly and ow.ly use this hack. In 2010, the Libyan registry suspendedvb.ly,an adult oriented.lylink shortener.

After a legal fight to allow so, theMoldovanccTLD (.md) has been used by doctors and medical companies due to its resemblance to the abbreviation MD, used by those holding aDoctor of Medicinedegree.It has also been used by websites relating to theMarkdownmarkup language (such asObsidian,obsidian.md) which uses.md as its file extension.

Further information:ccTLD § Unconventional usage

Other languages

InGermany,Austria,andSwitzerlandthe domain.agforAntigua and Barbudais used bycorporationsin the legal form ofAktiengesellschaft(commonly abbreviated as AG).

TheAmerican Samoadomain.asis popular in countries where AS or A/S (Aktieselskab/Aksjeselskap) is the legal suffix for stock-basedcorporationsin Denmark and Norway, so companies of those countries frequently employ it.

Some organisations situated inSwitzerlanduse TLDs to specifically refer to theircanton(such as theBelgianTLD.befor theCanton of Bern).

In a similar way some organizations in the German state ofSchleswig-Holsteinuse the.sh TLD fromSaint Helena.

InTurkish,"biz"means" we ", and can be used for emphasis at the end of" we are "sentences.

Family namesin manySlavic languageswritten in internationalized variant end withch(i.e.-ich, -vich, -vych, -ovich). Thischcomes from Slavic "ć", "č", "ч", or "ћ". Therefore, the Swiss.chccTLDis an option. Another use case of.ch is for English words that end inch,e.g. tech, punch, search, crunch, rich. Examples of such domains arecodesear.ch,freshte.ch,andswit.ch.

Since the introduction of.eudomains (eumeaning "I" in Romanian, Galician and Portuguese), these domains have become popular in Romania, with people registering their names with the.eu extension.Before the.eusdomain was introduced,.euwas also widely used by websites from theBasque Country,as it resembled the wordeuskera(meaningBasque).

InFrench,ItalianandPortuguese,làorlámean "there". As the.ladomain (Laos) is available for second-level registration worldwide, this can be an easy way to get a short, catchy name such as "go there". In Italy some TLDs are identical to Italian Provinces' identifier, such as.to (Turin) or.tv (Treviso) and are thus extensively used for web domains in the area. TheCanadiandomain.cais also trivial to use ascáorcà( "here" ), respectively in Portuguese andNeapolitan,orça( "that" ), inFrench;however, unlike some countries, Canada's.ca registrar requires local Canadian presence to use this domain.

Hungariandomains sometimes use the Moroccan top level domain.ma(meaning "today" ).

A fad amongst French-speakers was to register their names in theNiueTLD.nu,which inFrenchandPortuguesemeans "nude" or "naked"; however, as of 2007,Niue authorities have revoked many of these domain names. The handful that remain are joke domains without actual nudity. French speakers often use theJerseyTLD.je,since "je" means "I" in French. In addition,.jeis used in the Netherlands, as it can mean both "you" or "your". The addition of -je to most nouns also produces a diminutive form (e.g. huis.je, or the defunct iPhone app feest.je (feestje meaning "party" ).

Likewise, Dutch, Swedish, and Danish speakers sometimes use.nu, because it means "now" in these languages. The TLD is still used by many Swedish sites, as prior to 2003 it was impossible for individuals (and difficult for organizations) to register arbitrary domains under the.seTLD.

English words that end with the "rs" letters (cars, fixers, powers... etc.) provide means for another popular domain hack which utilizes the Serbian.RS domainextension.

InRussian,net(asнет,ornyettransliterated character for character) means "no" or "there isn't," so there are many domains in the formatsomething.net(e.g. redaktora.net meaning "[there is] no editor" ). There are many words ending withga(Cyrillic:га), including some highly popular (книга/knigameaningbook,дорога/dorogameaningroad). Gabon's.ga domain is free for registration, which has led to wide adoption of such domain hacks.

InCzech,PolishandSlovak,tomeans "it", so there are many domains usingTonga's.toin the format "do-something.to" (e.g., zrobie.to, meaning "I will do it" in thePolish languageorprestahujeme.tomeaning "We will move it" as Slovak moving service). Notably, Czech file sharing serviceuloz.towas founded in 2007, and its name "ulož to" means "save it".

InCzechas well,seandsiare particles markingsreflexive verbs,therefore the Sweden's and Slovenia's TLDs are used for domain hacks, such as a taxi service svez.se (for "have a ride" ) or a game server hraj.si ( "play" ) albeit the latter ones are no more available for new registration for non-Slovenian entities (see paragraph below).

InSlovenian,siis adativeform of the reciprocal personal pronoun and a second person form of the verbto be.As.siis a SlovenianccTLD,domain hacks are abundant. Additionally, the domain is attractive to speakers ofRomance languages,because it is a conjunction, pronoun or an affirmative interjection in many.ARNESlimits the use of the domain to residents and entities of Slovenia.

InSpanishandPortuguese,aris the ending of the infinitive of many verbs, so hacks with Argentina's TLD.arare common (e.g.,educ.ar,meaning "to educate" ). Similarly, another such verb suffix isir,TLD of Iran.

One of the earliest commercialISPsinFinlandused the domain sci.fi— a reference toscience fiction.

InKurdish,"im"means" I am ", so it's possible to make meaningful domains for personal purposes with theIsle of ManTLD.im.For example, rebaz.im would mean "Rêbaz im", which translates to "I am Rêbaz".

Some registries allowEmojiin domains, permitting the creation ofemoji domains.Many browsers display these domains aspunycodefor security reasons.

With the rise ofnew TLDs,some companies have registered entireTLDsin order to create a hack for their name. Most prominent is.gle,created forGoogleto be used as goo.gle.

See also

• Country code top-level domain
• Generic top-level domain
• Domain Name Hack Club(a listing of people with personal domain hacks)