What does .com mean? .com domain meaning, pros and cons

What does .com mean?

The abbreviation .com stands for “commercial” or translated for business. That’s because the top-level domain was initially used exclusively by businesses. Today, this connection is no longer a requirement to use the domain extension.

The original meaning no longer matters. If website operators comply with the legal provisions, they can basically use the .com domain for any type of website. Especially in this country, the .com domain is a good alternative if the popular country-specific .de domain is already taken.

The history of the .com domain

The .com domain was introduced in 1985. The domain ending is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) managed by the American company Verisign and supervised by the international organization ICANN.

In March 1895, the .com domain was assigned for the first time – to the company Symbolics. About a year later, the well-known company IBM was added.

What are the advantages of a .com domain?

The .com domain has a number of advantages that are particularly important for internationally active companies. Because the .com domain automatically ensures trust and seriousness for customers and readers. Incidentally, the generic TLD is one of the most frequently registered domains in the USA, ahead of the country-specific top-level domain “.us”.

Another advantage is that the .com domain can be registered by any natural person anywhere in the world, regardless of their place of residence. In the case of the country-specific TLD “.de”, this is not so easy in comparison; here, among other things, a registration address in Germany is required.

If you want to use special characters and umlauts in the domain name, you can do this with the .com domain. In addition, registration is often significantly cheaper compared to other TLDs.

What are the disadvantages of a .com domain?

Even if the popular top-level domain only has advantages at first glance, website operators should note a few things in advance. Due to its popularity, many combinations with short, easy-to-remember domain names are already taken. For this reason it is often necessary to switch to other TLDs.

In addition, the country-specific assignment is missing for the .com domain. This makes an even more professional and trustworthy impression, especially in the respective country. Even if companies prefer to use a different TLD, it makes sense to secure the .com domain. This prevents the competition from registering the domain.

How much does a .com domain cost?

How expensive a .com domain is depends directly on whether it is still freely available or already taken. The freely available domains are available from your domain provider for less than one euro per month.

If you are interested in a domain that has already been taken, you should generally expect a few hundred euros. Some very popular .com domains are even worth millions.

How to register a .com domain?

As a rule, you have the option of registering a .com domain with almost every domain provider. The first step is usually a free domain check. Here it is checked whether your desired domain is still freely available. If this is the case, you usually have the opportunity to register the domain immediately.

The domain provider will then take care of everything else for you: Registering and activating your domain usually only takes 24 hours, in a few cases more.

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