Domain hack
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A domain hack is an unconventional domain name that combines domain labels (especially the top level domain) to spell out the full "name" or title of the domain, making a kind of geeky pun.
For example, the domains del.icio.us, blo.gs, and cr.yp.to make use of the top-level domains .us (United States), .gs (South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands), and .to (Tonga) to spell "delicious", "blogs", and "crypto", respectively.
In this context, the "hack" represents a clever trick (as in programming), not an exploit or break-in (as in security).
Structure
Typical domain names follow the structure of example.com, where example is the 2nd-level domain (SLD) and com is the TLD (top level domain). A domain hack might take the form examp.le (using 2nd- and top-level domains examp and le), but that particular one is impossible, since there is no top-level domain le.A domain hack can be composed of more than just a domain name, and also make use of the server's file structure. Various structures such as "examp.le", "exam.ple", "ex.am.ple", "ex.am/ple", are all possible structures used to create domain hacks.
The most popular and most sought after domain hacks are those that use only the SLD and TLD (top level domain) to construct the full title, as shown by the "examp.le" example structure, above. However, a domain hack may use third level domains, fourth level domains, etc., and even directories/folders after the domain name to construct the title. A non-working, extreme, example of this would be
Some TLDs only permit registrations at the third or higher level, beneath names that represent some grouping of sites; however, in some cases, these names spell words themselves, such as co.in (coin), and co.il (coil).
Shorter domain names
Domain hacks offer the ability to produce extremely short domain names. A popular real world example is blo.gs with five letters total, versus the comparable blogs.com with eight letters or the often preferred www.blogs.com with eleven letters. Domain hacks default to the omission of the "www." prefix, with the side effect of shortening the domain name, as every letter is taken into account as the site's title.History
On Monday, November 23 1992, inter.net was registered and is thought to be the first domain hack ever. goatse.cx was another early domain hack. On Friday, May 3 2002, icio.us was registered and eventually became del.icio.us, the most visited domain hack, with the prepending of the "del" third level domain.One common domain hack in Spain is the domain pagina.de, translating roughly as "page.of", using the .de (Germany) TLD.
Yahoo! acquired blo.gs[#endnote_blo.gs] on June 14, 2005, and del.icio.us[#endnote_del.icio.us] on December 9, 2005.
By the end of 2005, the registration of Spanish second level .es domains became widely unrestricted.
During the month of January 2006, Belgian domain names ending in .be were available for free for users in the USA, UK, and Europe; due to the common use of the word "be" in English, and the number of words ending in "be" (such as "tube"), this was a prime opportunity to easily register domain hacks.
Other languages
Domain hacks are by no means restricted to the English language.Some years ago, a passing fad amongst French-speakers was to register their names in the Niue TLD (NU), which led to so-and-so.NU, which in French, means "naked". Likewise, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish speakers often use .nu, as it means 'now' in these languages.
Criticisms
Using domain hacks weakens the usefulness of country code TLDs. With domain hacks, it becomes harder to judge the country of origin of a website by just looking at the TLD. Breaking up a domain name to subdomains and/or the URL pathname most often renders the actual domain name meaningless and breaks against good naming conventions.See also
- domain name
- top-level domain
- generic top-level domain
- country code top-level domain
- CCTLDs that allow registration of 2nd level domains to foreign entities
Notes
- ↑ Winstead, Jim. [blo.gs: sold] June 14, 2005.
- ↑ Schachter, Joshua. [del.icio.us: y.ah.oo!] December 9, 2005.
External links
- [Domain Hacks] (Xona.com) - domain hack search utility
- [Domain Hacks Suggest] (Xona.com) - 300,000+ domain hack suggestions (filtered by first letter, word length, and TLD)
- [Domain Hacks & Email Hacks] (Xona.com) - domain hacks (and "email hacks") explained
- [Domain Brain] - Generate domain hacks by country code using words from the English language.
- [Non Dot Com Cool Domain Names]
- [Domain hunting: 220,000+ domain ideas]
- [Websear.ch] - web hosting with domain hack choices
- [Coolest Hostnames on the Net], a list from 1997 listing several classic domain hacks and other strange hostnames and email addresses
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