What is a gTLD?

What is a Generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD)?

A Generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) is the part of a domain name that appears to the right of the dot. For instance, in the domain "example.com," the .com represents the gTLD, commonly referred to as the domain extension.

The term "generic" indicates that these TLDs are not associated with any specific geographic location. As a result, search engines consider gTLDs to be neutral in terms of regional targeting.

Key Characteristics of gTLDs:

• Length: All gTLDs contain at least three characters.
• Early gTLDs: The first gTLDs, including .COM, .NET, and .ORG, were introduced in 1985.
• Growth: Since 2014, there has been a significant expansion in the number of available gTLDs, with new options introduced regularly.

Categories of TLDs:

gTLDs are one of several types of Top-Level Domains recognized by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). Other categories include:

1. Country Code TLDs (ccTLDs): These are reserved for specific countries or regions, such as .US for the United States or .CA for Canada.
2. Sponsored TLDs (sTLDs): Managed by a specific organization or sponsor, such as .XXX for adult content.
3. Internationalized TLDs (IDN TLDs): These TLDs allow for domain names in non-Latin scripts, such as Arabic or Chinese.

Other Considerations:

Terms like new TLDs (nTLDs) or regional/geographic TLDs (geoTLDs) are often used, but these categories are not officially recognized. Despite this, search engines still classify them as gTLDs, as they do not apply any regional targeting. Additionally, gccTLDs refers to country code TLDs marketed as generic options.

gTLDs offer flexibility and broad availability for domain name registration without being geographically restricted, making them suitable for various uses across different industries.