Commercial Domain Names

Commercial domain names, or the famous .coms, are generic top-level domain names (gTLD). Established in January 1985, commercial domain names are one of the oldest domain extensions and have grown to become the largest top-level domain used worldwide. These commercial domain names are used in the Internet's domain name system and are supposedly assigned to commercial entities. There are other top-level domains assigned to specific entities such as .gov for government agencies, .edu for educational institutions, and .org for non-profit organizations.

The opening of the commercial domain registry to the public occurred when the Internet became popular and commercialized. As a result, .coms dramatically became the most widespread top-level domain extension. Today, it is said that at least 97% of all 4-letter English words have been registered as .com domain names.

It is widely known that commercial domain names have made people instant millionaires simply by purchasing and selling high market potential domain names. Out of the 30 million domain names registered worldwide, over 20 million of them are .coms. Record breaking sales include Business.com, which was sold for the unbelievable price of $8 million, and Sex.com, which was sold for $14 million.

The registration of all commercial domain names, business and other domains, are processed through hundreds of registrars accredited by the ICANN — International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. With over 100 certified registrars, anyone from any part of the world can register their own unique commercial domain name with just a click of a button. It is also possible to transfer domains from one registrar to another.

Commercial domain names, as their name suggests, were originally intended for commercial websites. However, since there are no restrictions of who can register .com domains, individuals have been buying them for various purposes since the mid-90s. Any individual, group, or company can register their own domain names internationally or with their own country's domain registrars. Even non-profit groups prefer the .com extension for its being very recognizable and easy to recall. Even when .biz domains were introduced in 2001, the popularity of commercial (.com) domain names continued to reign over all domain extensions. The .com craze was and still is so popular that even the .biz extension has had only a trivial effect on its reputation.

Although there are many top-level domain extensions, country code domains, and other domain suffixes, commercial domain names remain the most popular and highest selling domain extensions available in the Internet.