Domain Suffix

A domain suffix is the last part of a domain name, consisting of the final "." and two or more letters. A domain suffix is also known as a "top-level domain" or TLD. Popular domain suffixes include ".com," ".net," and ".org," but there are more than a thousand domain suffixes approved by ICANN.

Each domain suffix is intended to define the type of website represented by the domain name. For example, ".com" domains are meant for commercial websites, while non-profit organizations use ".org" domains. Each country also has a unique domain suffix meant for websites within the country. For example, Brazilian websites may use the ".br" domain suffix, Chinese websites may use the ".cn" suffix, and Australian websites may use the ".au" suffix.

As the number of websites on the Internet continuously grows, the initial set of TLDs limits the namespace available for new domains. With most good ".com" domain names already taken in the late 1990s, people began pressuring ICANN to add new generic TLDs for businesses, personal websites, and other groups. They first added a new batch of generic TLDs in 2000 — including ".biz" and ".info." In 2013 ICANN began approving requests for many additional suffixes like ".art," ".dev," ".store," and ".app" that allow a website owner to choose a TLD for nearly any website niche.