.COM Domain Names

Registering a .COM domain is generally where most people start when starting up a business or personal website. .COM is the most recognized extension in the Internet, and most common.

History of .COM

The .COM domain was one of the original top level domains and has grown to be the world's most common and recognizable extensions. Originally established in January 1985, .COM domains were intended to represent commercial entities. Since there are no restrictions on who can register the extension, .COM is used for commercial and non-commercial websites. The opening of the .COM registry to the public coincided with the commercialization and popularization of the Internet, quickly making .COM the most common top-level domain for companies. Many companies that flourished in the late 1990's-2003 incorporated 'dot-com' into their company names (i.e. Name.COM). These companies became known as dot-coms, or dot-com companies.

Why should I register a .COM domain name?

.COM is the most common and recognized extension for domain names. If you are looking to start a business or personal website, .COM is the best place to start. Most people automatically type in .COM extension when they are surfing the web for a company. This is a highly coveted domain on the Internet, so if your name is still available, you should grab it!

The .COM domain is the #1 ranked domain in the world. As of December 1, 2008, it had 78,361,107 registrations. If you do not have a domain yet, you should start here! But don't worry, if your name is already taken in .COM, there are many other extensions to choose from.

International domain names (idns) in .COM

The Internet: It's multinational. It's multicultural. And now, it's multilingual! Verisign, as official administrator of the .COM top-level domain, is proud to present Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs).

IDNs are domain names that are spelled using native language, non-ASCII characters that may not appear in the English alphabet.

The .COM registry currently offers IDN registrations in 350 languages, for your convenience and use. Click on the any of the links below to see which characters are permitted in each language.

What about being country-specific?

Using second-level extensions for .COM is a great way to focus your business. It also can give you a greater chance for finding the domain you want in a .COM extension. If your business is located in India, or conducts a large amount of business in India, you can try to register the domain mycompanyname.co.in, where 'in' is the country code for India.

name.com offers the following third-level .COM extensions:

More information about the .COM extension:

verisign: the .COM registry

verisign: idn languages and conversion tool

wikipedia article: .COM

what is ascii?

what is an idn?