Domain name terms from A to Z
Choose a letter, or follow the links from one term to another. Where one of our pages deals with a subject, a link leads to it.
A
- Administrative contact
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The contact who acts for the registrant in dealings with the registry or the registrar. Some registries require the administrative contact to be established in their country even when the registrant is not: a local presence can then fill that role.
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A password attached to a domain, which the current registrar gives to the registrant so that another registrar can request a transfer. It is also called the auth code, transfer code or EPP code, after the protocol that registries and registrars use. Not every registry uses one: some confirm a transfer by e-mail, with a signed form or with documents.
C
- ccTLD (country code top-level domain)
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A top-level domain reserved for a country or a territory, usually made of two letters that are in most cases its ISO 3166 country code: .fr for France, .de for Germany, .br for Brazil. Internationalised country code domains, such as .рф for Russia, are written in the country's script. Each ccTLD is run by a registry under its own rules, which may restrict who can register, ask for documents or require a local presence.
- Change of registrant
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The change of the holder of a domain name, for instance after a sale or a merger. It is not a transfer: the registrar can stay the same. Registries usually ask for the agreement of both the current and the new registrant, sometimes with documents, and the new registrant must meet the rules of the extension.
- Cybersquatting
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The registration, in bad faith, of a domain name that reproduces someone else's trademark or name: to sell it back to the owner, to divert its customers or to profit from its reputation. The answers range from a cease-and-desist letter to a UDRP complaint, the dispute procedure of a registry or a court action.
D
- Defensive registration
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The registration of names a company does not plan to use, to keep them from others: its brand in the extensions of its markets, common misspellings, or the brand with an added word. It usually costs less than recovering a name later. Some registries and providers also offer blocking services, which reserve a brand across many extensions without registering each name.
- DNS (Domain Name System)
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The system that translates a domain name into the information computers need, such as the IP address of a website or the mail servers of a domain. For every domain, the registry publishes the name servers that answer for it, and those servers hold the domain's records.
- DNSSEC
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An extension of the DNS that signs the records of a domain, so that a resolver can check that the answers are the records published for the domain and were not altered on the way. It works when the records are signed and the registry publishes the matching key data, which the registrar sends to it.
- Domain lock (registrar lock, registry lock)
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A status that blocks changes to a domain. A registrar lock prevents transfers, and often updates and deletion, until the registrant lifts it. A registry lock goes further: the registry itself freezes the name servers, the contacts and the registrar, and lifts the lock only after a manual check that the request really comes from the registrant. It protects important domains against hijacking, when someone takes control of a domain to change its name servers or move it away. Not every registry offers it.
- Domain portfolio
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All the domain names held by a company or a group, at every registrar and in every subsidiary. A portfolio is under control when someone knows which names it holds, who holds them, when they expire and what each one is for; an audit and a written domain policy keep it that way.
- Domain transfer
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The move of a domain name from one registrar to another. The name, the website and the e-mail keep working, and the registrant stays the same. A transfer usually needs the domain to be unlocked and an authorisation code, and it may be refused shortly after a registration or a previous transfer, for a period set by the registry or, for gTLDs, by ICANN's transfer policy.
- Domain watching
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A service that monitors new registrations, and changes to existing domains, for names that contain a brand or chosen keywords, in any extension, and reports them with the public registration record and the website when one is live. It gives the evidence needed for a cease-and-desist letter or a dispute procedure.
- dotBrand (.brand TLD)
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A top-level domain made of a brand, applied for by the company that owns the trademark and run for its own use: the brand sits to the right of the dot and nobody else can register a name in it. New top-level domains are created during application rounds organised by ICANN.
E
- Expiry and grace period
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The expiry date is the last day of the period paid for. After it, the domain is often kept for a grace period during which it can still be renewed; whether that period exists, and how long it lasts, depends on the registry and the registrar. Then comes, where the registry has one, the redemption period, and finally, unless the registrar has transferred the name to another party in the meantime, its deletion: anyone can then register it, often at once through services that specialise in expiring names (drop catching).
G
- General availability
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The phase from which anyone can register the available names of an extension, first come, first served, at the standard price. It follows the sunrise and, where there is one, the landrush.
- gTLD (generic top-level domain)
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A top-level domain that is not tied to a country, such as .com, .org, .net or .app. Almost all gTLD registries work under contracts with ICANN, so the same core policies apply to them, among them the transfer rules, the expiry rules and the UDRP.
I
- IDN (internationalised domain name)
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A domain name written with characters other than the Latin letters a to z, the digits and the hyphen: accented letters, Cyrillic, Arabic, Chinese and other scripts. The DNS stores it in an ASCII form called Punycode. Because some characters of different scripts look alike, registries limit the characters they accept, to make look-alike names harder to register.
L
- Landrush
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A launch phase that some registries hold after the sunrise and before general availability: anyone can apply, usually at a higher price, and a name requested by several applicants is allocated by auction or by another method the registry sets.
- Local presence (trustee service)
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A service that provides an address, a company or a contact in the country of an extension whose registry requires one, so that a registrant from abroad can hold the domain. Depending on the registry rules, the provider acts as the local administrative contact, as the local address of the registrant, or as the registrant of record under a written agreement. It is also called a trustee, local proxy or local agent service.
N
- Name server
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A server that answers DNS queries for a domain: it holds the records that point the domain to a website, to a mail service and to other services. The name servers of a domain are set at the registrar and published by the registry. A change of name servers that nobody ordered is often the first sign of a hijacking (see domain lock).
P
- Phishing domain
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A domain name registered to impersonate a company and trick its customers or employees into giving passwords, card numbers or payments. It usually imitates the real domain with a typo, an added word, another extension or characters from another script. A documented request can have the site taken down by its host or the domain suspended by its registrar, and a watch on new registrations spots such names early.
-
A domain name sold at a higher price than the standard one, usually because it is short, a common word or easy to remember. A premium price set by the registry can apply to renewals as well; a name bought from its current holder is usually renewed at the standard price, unless the registry itself classes it as premium.
- Punycode
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The encoding that turns an internationalised domain name into the letters, digits and hyphens the DNS accepts. A Punycode label starts with xn--: .рф becomes .xn--p1ai. Browsers usually display the readable form, and may display the Punycode form when a name looks suspicious.
R
- RDAP (Registration Data Access Protocol)
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The successor of WHOIS: the same registration data, in a structured format and over a secure connection. For gTLDs, ICANN has made RDAP the reference service in place of WHOIS; many ccTLD registries offer it too, while others still run only a WHOIS server.
- Registrant
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The person or organisation that holds a domain name, also called the holder. The registrant has the right to use the name and must keep its contact data accurate. Handing the name to someone else is a change of registrant, not a transfer.
- Registrar
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A company accredited by a registry, or by ICANN for gTLDs, to register domain names for its clients. The registrar sends registrations, renewals and changes to the registry and keeps the contact data of the registrant. A domain moves from one registrar to another through a transfer.
- Registry
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The organisation that runs a top-level domain: it keeps the database of the names registered in it, publishes them in the DNS and sets the rules of the extension. Afnic runs .fr, DENIC runs .de and Verisign runs .com. In most extensions, registrations reach the registry through registrars.
- Renewal
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The extension of a registration for a further period, normally before its expiry date. Most registries renew by the year and some for several years at once. A domain that is not renewed in time enters the expiry process of its registry.
- Reseller
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A company that sells domain names under its own brand through a registrar, without being accredited by the registries itself. Hosting companies, web agencies and smaller registrars often work this way, so that a single connection gives them access to many extensions.
- Restoration (redemption period)
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The last chance to recover a domain that has expired and been deleted by its registrar: during the redemption period, the registry holds the name and only the previous registrant can restore it, for a restoration fee on top of the renewal. For most gTLDs this period lasts 30 days; ccTLD registries set their own period, or have none.
S
- Second-level domain
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The label just to the left of the top-level domain, such as example in example.com. Some registries also open registrations under second-level domains of their own, such as .co.uk or .com.br, often with their own rules and prices: the name is then registered at the third level, as in example.co.uk.
- Sunrise period
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The first phase of the launch of a new extension, reserved for trademark holders, who can register the names that match their trademarks before the public. For new gTLDs, the trademarks must first be recorded in the Trademark Clearinghouse; ccTLD registries that hold a sunrise set their own conditions.
T
- TMCH (Trademark Clearinghouse)
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The central database of verified trademarks set up with ICANN's new gTLD programme. A trademark recorded in it gives access to the sunrise of new gTLDs, and to notices when someone registers a matching name during the first period of general availability (the trademark claims service).
- Top-level domain (TLD)
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The last part of a domain name, after the final dot: .com, .fr or .de. A top-level domain is either a country code domain (ccTLD) or a generic one (gTLD), and each one is run by a single registry.
- Typosquatting
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A form of cybersquatting that uses a misspelling of a brand or of a well-known domain: a missing, doubled or swapped letter, a hyphen, or another extension. It catches visitors who mistype an address, and it is often used for phishing or for advertising pages.
U
- UDRP (Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy)
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The procedure adopted by ICANN to settle disputes over domain names that reproduce a trademark, without going to court. It applies to all gTLDs and to the ccTLDs whose registry has adopted it; other ccTLDs have their own procedure, or none. The complainant must show that the name is identical or confusingly similar to its trademark, that the holder has no right or legitimate interest in it, and that it was registered and is used in bad faith. The panel can order the transfer or the cancellation of the name. For new gTLDs, the URS is a faster procedure that suspends a name in clear cases.
W
- WHOIS
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The public lookup service that tells whether a domain name is registered, and gives its registrar, its creation and expiry dates, its name servers and its status. Since the European data protection rules, most registries and registrars no longer publish the personal data of individual holders, and many hide those of companies as well. See also RDAP.
- WHOIS privacy (anonymization)
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A service that replaces the name, the address and the e-mail of the registrant in the public registration record with those of a provider, while the client keeps the use of the domain. It keeps a project confidential and limits spam, but it does not protect the holder from a court order or a dispute procedure, and some registries do not allow it.
