Please tell me you didn't miss the silly pun in the subtitle. 😭
Why is .com so commonly used, even by Giant companies?
Like Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Github, to name a few?
Let us be honest, all of us are familiar with sites ending with .com. Even big companies like Google, Facebook, Linked In, Github, etc have .com in their domain name system.
Are you wondering what makes .com so special?
For a while, I have been thinking about it but did not bother to research until the day, Tanay Pratap mentioned it too educating us about the internet and web hosting, in one of his live sessions at NeoGCamp. As much as I was fascinated by the way the internet works,I was equally fascinated to know more about the .com top-level domain. I am so glad to finally being able to share whatever I could gather on this note.
In the late 19th century, the rapid growth of the internet caused major problems in keeping records. To deal with this problem and make internet navigation easier, Paul Mockapetris expanded the internet and invented the Domain Name System(DNS) in 1983.in short, DNS is a hierarchical and decentralized naming system for computers, services, or other resources connected to the internet.
.com : introduced on January 1, 1985, is the first-ever Top-Level-Domain used after the Domain Name System(DNS) was first implemented for use on the Internet. So, it is safe to say, that this Top-Level-Domain has been in the game from the very first. And it is still in the game, leading.
The name .com derives its name from the term commercial depicting its original intended purpose for domains registered by commercial organizations. Later, the domain opened for general purposes. It started to gain more and more popularity when non-profit organizations started using ".com"
Let us take a look at few possible reasons why this is so common and widely used:
.com is a generic top-level domain. i.e, not specified for any particular purpose.
.com does not have a registration restriction. Unlike ".in"(available to anyone; used by companies, individuals, and organizations in India) or ".ca"( is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Canada.), to name a few.
Since, being the oldest in the game, .com is the most trustworthy TLD(Top-Level-Domain): A URL people trust is more likely to get clicked on, linked to, and shared. And it’s easier to build a brand with.
.com Top-Level-Domains are 33% more memorable than URL with other Top-Level-Domains. When a person, misremembers an URL, they are most likely to assume that it ends with ".com"
- Big Companies use .com to demonstrate Authority, Trust, and Longevity.
Did You Know? 🤔
Symbolics.com is the first and oldest Domain Name.
Conclusion
I hope this was easy to understand. I may have missed a lot of points. Please feel free to comment them. 🎊