Okay, let’s stop here with the technical stuff. Here’s a complete cut-out-‘n-keep explanation of everything that’s in your browser’s address bar: Then, it fetches the website from that server. So, whenever someone tries to visit a given website, their web browser takes the domain name and translates it into an absolute web address - the IP address of the server where the website is kept. Under the hood, domain names point to specific IP addresses: The real numeric addresses of places on the web. It’s somewhat the same with domain names. We use that simplified street address just to be able to grasp the location more quickly and to not have to spend time figuring out the physical coordinates. But that form of address is hard to remember, so we tend to use 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue instead (aka: The White House). Your home - your actual home - can be located without fail via its geographic coordinates. So, for the site you’re reading right now: winningwp is the SLD, com is the TLD, and together we have as the complete domain name.īut what’s ‘inside’ that domain name under the hood?Ī domain name is a handy pointer that lets your visitors find your site in the depths of the web. The SLD and the TLD, when combined, make up the complete domain name. Just to recap this part of our answer to what is a domain name: com to the alternative domain that you’ve chosen.) com when typing it into their web browser, but also because you don’t want your site being confused with another. com as well if possible - primarily because a lot of people will assume your domain name is a. com if your website will only operate locally. You can consider using one of these instead of. com: It’s the most recognizable and the most prestigious TLD.Īlternatively, there are also hundreds of local/regional TLDs, such as: In the end, however, what everybody wants is a. That being said, except in exceptional circumstances, it’s no longer possible to get your hands on. There are no rules you need to adhere to when picking a TLD - you can go with whatever seems to fit your future website.

org when launching a website for a non-profit. Right now, though, no one pays too much attention to those intended purposes for TLDs, and there’s surely no one forcing you to use a. net - network projects (whatever that means) The most popular TLDs to choose from, along with their originally intended purposes, are:

There’s only a finite number of TLDs you can choose from (you can’t input your own as you can with an SLD). TLD (Top Level Domain): Back in the day, this part used to indicate the purpose of the whole domain name, or the entity that the domain belonged to. No spaces are allowed.įor example, if your business is called Joe’s Extra Diner, you may want to make your SLD joesextradiner.

Special thanks to Jürgen Eichberger, Ulle Endriss, Martin Hellwig, Anke Gerber, Bettina Klaus, Gleb Koshevoy, Jérôme Lang, Jean-Francois Laslier, Bernard Monjardet, Hervé Moulin, Stefan Napel, Klaus Nehring, Rolf Niedermeier, Georg Nöldeke, Matias Nunez, Hans Peters, Marcus Pivato, Anup Pramanik, Ernesto Savaglio, Karl Schlag, Adi Shamir, Attila Tasnádi, Jörgen Weibull and Bill Zwicker for helpful comments and/or encouragement.SLD (Second Level Domain): When registering your domain name, this part can consist of any number of alphanumeric characters (a-z, A-Z, 0-9) and hyphens (permitted if surrounded by other characters or digits). I am grateful to the participants for valuable discussion and comments. This work was presented in seminars at Higher School of Economics in Moscow, Université de Cergy-Pontoise, Université Paris Dauphine, the University of Glasgow, the University of Siena, TU Berlin, at the Workshop on Game Theory and Social Choice at Corvinus University Budapest, at the “Tagung des Theoretischen Ausschusses des Vereins für Socialpolitik” in Basel, at COMSOC conference in Toulouse, at ESEM conference in Lisbon, at the VfS conference in Vienna and at the Workshop on Social Choice in Lausanne. Tobias Dittrich also created the figures based on a graphic tool developed by David McCooey. I am indebted to Tobias Dittrich and Michael Müller who provided excellent research assistance. I thank two anonymous referees and an associate editor for helpful comments and remarks.

Simple domainer