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Ask HN: Why do many websites use a country code as the top-level domain?
Many top-level domains correspond to a specific country code, such as .ie or .nz. I'm familiar with the .com, .edu, .org, .gov convention used in the United States, so using the country code as the top domain seems pointless and confusing to me. For example, for a long time CERN used cern.ch despite the fact that they're located in both France and Switzerland.
Why is this the current practice?
- andrelaszlo 8y agoIn Sweden, my home country, the se TLD became the de facto default for local companies, or the Swedish branch of international companies. Using an se domain just seemed like the correct choice for a Swedish site. I'm guessing it's for practical reasons to begin with. It was probably much easier to deal with the local registrar, for example. Payments and the registration process were not as simple or fast as they are today. RFC1591 may also give a hint: "This domain has grown very large and there is concern about the administrative load and system performance if the current growth pattern is continued. Consideration is being taken to subdivide the COM domain and only allow future commercial registrations in the subdomain." https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1591 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1591
- RNeff 8y agoMany public institutions use the .us TLD. The Sonoma Public Library in the northern county of Sonoma in California is sonoma.lib.ca.us
- icedchai 8y agoProbably because the domain was available in the country code and not the .com? Many CC TLDS opened up registration to those outside of their country, making it more common to register domains in those TLDS.
- smt88 8y agoI can't answer fully, but TLD governance does vary. That will sometimes contribute to the decision to use one or another.