Dot net

[Wallstone]

The .net TLD was originally geared toward organizations involved in networking technologies, such as internet service providers, domain registrars, web hosting providers, etc. But now the main reason someone registers a .net domain is that the .com version of the domain is already taken.

[Crowbar]

Yes, .net is usually on the second place after .com in the users' preferences, followed by .org and .biz. I, personally, prefer one of the more recent domains, .co, which has become internationally available.

[Bushgrass]

I have never registered a .co domain. Do registrars still sell it at £20 or so like they used to? As far as the original post is concerned, I agree that today people don't use TLDs the way it is intended.

[Gerald]

Yeah, today .net TLD is used not only by companies/organizations involved in networking technologies, but also commercial, social, cultural, even religious organizations. You cannot tell what a website is about from its domain extension.

[Networker]

It happens not only to .net but also to other TLDs, including .info. As I said in another thread here, scammers and spammers often use it to create scamming and spamming websites. I don't think .info was originally created for spamming activities.

[Geoffrey]

I notice that also. Now someone registers a domain name with a particular TLD just because it's cute, and it's available. I think only non profit organizations still religiously use only .org for their domains.

[GeorgieQ]

Even some non-profit organizations register as "dot coms". That seems a mistake to me since it infers an air of commercialism which can undermine their purpose. Other than .gov and .edu, there are apparently no restrictions on what one can register.

[Networker]

Yeah GQ that happens. Some non profit organizations initially used .org TLD for their websites. Then, to protect their domain names from domain squatters, they registered the .com versions of the domains and redirect them to their main websites.