A domain name, such as example.com, is an ordered list of labels that names a resource on the Internet in the Domain Name System (DNS). The DNS links each name to the records that a computer needs to find the resource.
History of Domain name
Creator: Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), which published the DNS standards; Symbolics Inc. (first .com registration). Year: 1983.
Computers on the ARPANET used one shared file. The file was named HOSTS.TXT. A computer at SRI, the Stanford Research Institute, kept it. Each computer copied the file to learn the address of another host. The growth of the network made a single list impossible to maintain. In 1983, the Domain Name System (DNS) was introduced. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) published it as RFC 882 and RFC 883. Names replaced long lists of numbers.
On 15 March 1985, Symbolics Inc. registered symbolics.com. Symbolics was a computer systems firm in Massachusetts. Four more .com names followed that year, including bbn.com and dec.com. Five .edu names were registered on 24 April 1985, including berkeley.edu and cmu.edu. These names show that organizations could hold a name in a top-level domain.
By 1992, fewer than 15,000 .com domain names had been registered.1 Growth continued after that. In the first quarter of 2015, 294 million domain names had been registered.2 Most of them were in the .com top-level domain.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) manages the top levels of the domain name space. ICANN accredits registrars. Registrars sell the right to use a name to the public. Each top-level domain also has a registry. The registry keeps the database of names in that top-level domain. Registrars send registration data to the registry.
Changelog and latest update
The first domain name rules came in 1983 with RFC 882 and RFC 883. RFC 973 updated them in January 1986. RFC 1034 and RFC 1035 replaced the 1983 standards in November 1987. These documents set the core rules for names, labels and records. They defined the label limit of 63 octets.
The DNS grew to include more top-level domains. In 2012, ICANN began a program for generic top-level domains (gTLDs). The program received 1930 applications.3 By 2016, 1000 gTLDs were live. Each new top-level domain uses the same name rules as com and org.
Internationalized domain names (IDNs) allowed names in many scripts. The IDNA system maps Unicode text into the ASCII characters that DNS accepts. The encoding is called Punycode. For example, københavn.eu is stored as xn--kbenhavn-54a.eu. Browsers and mail systems show the local form to users.
Latest update: RFC 9499: DNS Terminology (BCP 219), 2024-03
The IETF published RFC 9499, DNS Terminology, in March 2024 as Best Current Practice 219. It obsoletes RFC 8499. It also updates RFC 2308 on negative caching. The RFC defines a domain name as an ordered list of one or more labels. The definition does not depend on the DNS RFCs. The RFC Editor page for RFC 9499 confirms the March 2024 date and its status. This page uses that definition.
Usage examples
A domain name is written as labels separated by dots. The right-most label is the top-level domain. The examples show the parts of a name, a lookup with the dig tool, a web server setting that uses a domain, and the name server records that delegate a domain. The example domain example.com is reserved for documentation, so the examples use it safely. Each example shows one step in the life of a domain name.
www.example.com.
| | |
| | +-- top-level (com)
| +---------- domain (example)
+--------------- host label (www)This diagram splits one fully qualified domain name into its labels. The trailing dot marks the root of the DNS tree. The right-most label, com, is the top-level domain. The label example is the second-level domain. The label www is a host inside that domain.
dig +short example.com A
dig +short example.com NS
dig example.com SOA +noall +answerThe dig command asks a DNS resolver for records. The first line prints the IPv4 address of the name. The second line lists the name servers that answer for the domain. The third line prints the start of authority record, which holds the zone serial number and timers. Run these on a system with the BIND tools installed.
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName www.example.com
ServerAlias example.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/example
</VirtualHost>This Apache virtual host answers requests for two domain names on one IP address. The ServerName directive sets the main name. The ServerAlias directive adds the bare domain. The server matches the Host request header to choose this block and the site folder.
example.com. 3600 IN NS ns1.example.net.
example.com. 3600 IN NS ns2.example.net.These NS records delegate the domain to two name servers. The class IN means Internet. The number 3600 is the time to live in seconds, which equals one hour. Resolvers use these records to find the servers that hold the zone for example.com.
References
These sources are outside Websnoogie and were checked on 2026-10-12.
Domain name
Wikipedia
Encyclopedia article on domain name syntax, the 63-octet label limit, the 1985 .com and .edu registrations, registrars and registries, and the role of ICANN in the top-level domain space. Used for the history section on this page.
RFC 9499: DNS Terminology
IETF, RFC Editor
Best Current Practice 219, published March 2024. It defines a domain name as an ordered list of one or more labels and it obsoletes RFC 8499. This page uses it for the standard definition and the latest update.
RFC 1035: Domain Names, Implementation and Specification
IETF, RFC Editor
Standard published in November 1987 that specifies the DNS message format and the rules for labels and domain names. It replaced the 1983 DNS standards for the history section on this page.
Accredited Registrars
ICANN
ICANN page explaining that an accredited registrar offers domain name registration for a generic top-level domain. It describes how a person or organization registers a name through a registrar instead of directly with the registry.
IANA Root Zone Database
IANA
Official list of top-level domains in the DNS root zone, with each domain type and the organization that manages it. Use it to check whether a top-level domain such as com, net or org is delegated.
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