A domain name is structured into three different levels – the subdomain is located on the leftmost side of the domain name, the second-level domain is in the middle, and the top-level domain is in the final segment of the domain.
TLDs are at the highest level of the DNS ‘Domain Name System’ (the phonebook of the internet).
( DNS is a naming system responsible for translating human-friendly domain names into IP addresses that computers need to communicate with one another).
TLDs help you identify your business type, purpose, country or region, and more. They basically tell a story about the domain name they are associated with.
There are two categories of Top-level Domains, Generic Top-level Domains ( gTLDs) and Country Code Top-level Domains (ccTLDs).
Generic top-level domains (gTLDs):
gTLDs are the most common domain and are available to everyone with very low restrictions.
.com , .org, .net, .edu , .co are all examples of generic domains and each is used for a different purpose.
- .com: is mostly used by online businesses
- .org : non-profit organizations
- .net: used for online companies, personal project, and many other reasons
- .edu: educational institutions
- .co: companies
Also, companies and organizations can register their own gTLDs, so there are other generic domains like:
- .money
- .realestate
- .cloud
- .construction
However, you have to be cautious about your choice of TLDs to prevent being associated with amateur websites.
Less familiar TLDs will discourage users from visiting the website which will hurt the company’s reputation and click-through rate (CTR) as well.
.com websites for example tend to have a higher trust value because other TLDs are often used by spammers.
Country code top-level domains:
This is a two-letter domain extension that represents a country or a region.
Example:
- .eg: Egypt – Register a .eg domain name now!
- .de: Germany
- .uk : United Kingdom
- .es: Spain
- .ca: Canada
- .fr: France
Do you still need more information about ccTLDs? Read our blog post on ‘What is a ccTLD?’
Register a .eg domain name today.