Domain Name Tutorials

What Are Domain Registrars? It used to be that the word registrar referred only to the office that kept track of your school grades! These days, it’s often found in the term domain registrar. Find out what domain registrars are and why you might want one.

What Is a Domain?

The domain in the term domain registrars refers to the top-level domain (TLD) in a URL, commonly referred to as a web address. The TLD is indicated by the two or more letters that follow the dot in the domain name. The second-level domain is the element that precedes that. So, in the URL google.com, google is the second-level domain and .com is the TLD. Domain names are acquired as a specific combination of a second-level domain with a TLD. This means that comcast.com and comcast.net are to different domain names and are registered separately. Limitations in second-level domain registration prevent those who do not own the rights to a brand or tradename from using it in a URL.

There are two main types of TLDs:

• country code TLDs (ccTLDs) are TLDs that specify a territory or country. Examples are .us, .uk, and .eu for the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union.

• generic TLDs (gTLDs) are part of the Domain Name System (DNS), some of which identify the type of organization that holds the domain name (like .edu for educational institutions) and some of which can be used by anyone who registers one, provided they choose a second-level domain that they are entitled to use.

While the country code TLDs are numerous, the gTLDs number 20 as of 2010. They are, as you will see, not all completely open. The gTLDs .edu, .gov, .mil (for United States accredited post-secondary educational institutions, the United States government, and the United States military) cannot be acquired by just anyone approaching a registrar.

• .aero for air-transport industry

• .asia for the communities of Pan-Asia and Asia Pacific

• .biz for business

• .cat for the Catalan community

• .com open

• .coop or cooperative associations

• .info open

• .int for organizations established by international treaties

• .jobs for human resource managers

• .mobi for consumers and providers of mobile products/services

• .museum for museums

• .name for individuals

• .net open

• .org open

• .pro for professionals with credentials

• .tel for the publication of contact information for businesses and individuals

• .travel for the travel industry

What Is a Registrar?

Both gTLDs and ccTLDs have a registry operator to manage the database for the registry. The registrar in the term domain registrars refers to the organizations that are qualified to sign you up for second-level domains with particular TLDs. While gTLDs, there are registrars that have been accredited by ICANN, the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ccTLDs can be registered either with local registrars or with the registry operator itself. Registrars accredited by ICANN for gTLDs may also be accredited to register ccTLDs. There are wholesale and retail registrars. Wholesale registrars do not deal with the public, but employ registration service providers (RSPs) to resell domain name registrations.

Finding a Legitimate Registrar

If you are registering a gTLD, you can use the ICANN list of its accredited registrars here: http://www.icann.org/registrars/accredited-list.html. Click on gTLDs above the chart for a list. Within the chart, click on a registrar name to visit the registrar’s homepage.

Limitations in the gTLDs the organization is accredited to sell are indicated in the chart, as is the registrars location and an indication of whether the organization has agreed to the 2009 version of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA), which provides more protection for people who register domain names than the alternative 2001 version. Also, note that the location indicated in the name of the registrar is not always a useful guide to the country in which the registrar is located. For example, Unitedkingdomdomains, LLC is in the United States.

For ccTLDs, click on ccTLDs above the chart for a list. Clicking on the domain will take you to a page where the URL from which you can obtain registration service is provided towards the bottom of the page in the section titles ‘Subdomain Information.’

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