Power of Dot com
long-and-bulky-website-names.xx
are getting out of fashion
Birth of domain names
Internet domains were introduced in 1985 `
as part of the original Domain Name System (DNS).
The main people behind the idea
were the American computer scientists
Jon Postel and Paul Mockapetris.
The first domain registered 15-03-1985
was Symbolics.com
It took until 30-11-1987
to reach a benchmark
of 100 registered .com domain names.
Next to .com
also came alive .net and .org
Country code TLDs (ccTLDs)
appeared
with each country having
a two letter country code
The first ones were
.us, .uk, .de, .fr
Country codes are know to a national population
and to international people familiar with a country
There are xx different country codes
while some countries
use a country code alone
.de for Germany
.fr fro France
others use it in combination with .co
.co.uk for the UK
.co.za South Africa
others in combination with .com
.com.br for Brazil
Dot com was the default
TLD
for Businesses from the start.
Today 160 million dot com domains are registered
Every famous brand uses .com
good .com domains
have significant value
today
Why .com
outshines
every other internet code
.com = “commercial” in the original DNS plan (1984–85).
When the internet opened beyond academia and government in the late 1980s–1990s, business use exploded faster than any other sector.
Companies naturally gravitated to .com as the namespace meant for them.
Unlike ccTLDs (.de, .uk, .fr), .com was not tied to any country.
Multinational companies preferred a single global identity rather than many country domains.
This made .com the default choice for international brands.
The World Wide Web (1991–1993) and browsers like Mosaic/Netscape made the internet accessible to the public.
The dot-com boom (mid-1990s) tied “being on the internet” directly to having a .com address.
Media, investors, and the public began using “.com” as shorthand for the internet itself.
In the early years, .com had almost no restrictions:
Anyone could register
No proof of business required
In contrast:
Many ccTLDs were restricted (local presence, legal entity, manual approval)
This made .com fast, easy, and attractive.
Once most major companies used .com, it became:
The domain people expected
The domain users typed by default
Browsers and email habits reinforced this:
If users didn’t know a site, they tried name.com
This created a self-reinforcing cycle.
Over time, .com came to signal “real company”.
Even today:
Startups often buy the .com version of their name later, even if they launch on another TLD.
No other TLD achieved the same universal recognition.
.net and .org existed from the start but had:
Weaker branding
More specific meanings
New gTLDs (like .app, .shop, .tech) arrived decades later:
By then, .com dominance was entrenched
Users already trusted and remembered .com most easily
.com won because it:
Was early
Was unrestricted
Was global
Matched the fastest-growing use case (commerce)
Benefited massively from network effects
By the time alternatives appeared, .com was already “the internet” in people’s minds.
ccTLDs anchor the web geographically,
while .com became its global default.
The Visit phenomenon
Many Tourism Sites that arrived late
mabde the error to use
a non .dot com domain
investing their marketing effors
in a poor internet adress