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Oldest domains in the .com, .net, and .org TLDs

cambus.net

11–20 of 141 posts

Re: Oldest domains in the .com, .net, and .org TLDs

#11
post #3

Lots of business and org names are acronyms, but it really stands out to me how most of the early ones are short. I guess in the age of excessively-long UUCP addresses, it was immediately obvious that short domain names would be preferable to longer ones.

It's a deeper reason than that. Humans are hardwired to start with short symbols.

Picture a group of humans who evolve a new language. That language will likely start with short sounds, and then progressively build up to longer sounds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCn8zs912OE

Anyone who hasn't read A Mathematical Theory of Communication, you're missing out. It's quite readable and quite cool: http://math.harvard.edu/~ctm/home/text/others/shannon/entrop...

Re: Oldest domains in the .com, .net, and .org TLDs

#12

Top 20: symbolics.com - Still exists bbn.com - Redirects to raytheon.com think.com - Dead mcc.com - Redirects to thecryptogenius.com (sometimes, not sure what's going on with it) dec.com - Redirects to paulkocher.com northrop.com - Dead xerox.com - Alive, Xerox website sri.com - Alive hp.com - Alive, HP website bellcore.com - Dead ibm.com - Alive, IBM website sun.com - Alive, sun website (oracle.com) intel.com - Aliv…

northrop.com should’ve been kept and redirected to http://northropgrumman.com

Re: Oldest domains in the .com, .net, and .org TLDs

#13
post #3

Lots of business and org names are acronyms, but it really stands out to me how most of the early ones are short. I guess in the age of excessively-long UUCP addresses, it was immediately obvious that short domain names would be preferable to longer ones.

The two letter domain names really stuck out to me. I had a boss ask me back in the early 2000's to register a two letter domain and I was surprised to find that Network Solutions would no longer do that. I didn't spend much time on it so maybe another registrar would but as far as I can remember two letter domains just weren't an option at the point.

I guess TI, GE and HP were smart to grab them when they could!

Re: Oldest domains in the .com, .net, and .org TLDs

#14
post #10

Top 20: symbolics.com - Still exists bbn.com - Redirects to raytheon.com think.com - Dead mcc.com - Redirects to thecryptogenius.com (sometimes, not sure what's going on with it) dec.com - Redirects to paulkocher.com northrop.com - Dead xerox.com - Alive, Xerox website sri.com - Alive hp.com - Alive, HP website bellcore.com - Dead ibm.com - Alive, IBM website sun.com - Alive, sun website (oracle.com) intel.com - Aliv…

are single letter domains not allowed? surprised two letter domains are not more common.

x.com, but maybe it's not one of the oldest

Re: Oldest domains in the .com, .net, and .org TLDs

#15

Top 20: symbolics.com - Still exists bbn.com - Redirects to raytheon.com think.com - Dead mcc.com - Redirects to thecryptogenius.com (sometimes, not sure what's going on with it) dec.com - Redirects to paulkocher.com northrop.com - Dead xerox.com - Alive, Xerox website sri.com - Alive hp.com - Alive, HP website bellcore.com - Dead ibm.com - Alive, IBM website sun.com - Alive, sun website (oracle.com) intel.com - Aliv…

northrop.com should’ve been kept and redirected to http://northropgrumman.com

gmr.com whois - General Motors Research & Development Center of General Motors Research & Development Center since 2017. Gmr was registered with Network Solutions LLC. on May 08, 1986. General Motors Research & Development Center resides in WARREN, USA and their email is rpresby@mail.com.

They could’ve just pointed it to http://gm.com

Re: Oldest domains in the .com, .net, and .org TLDs

#16

Top 20: symbolics.com - Still exists bbn.com - Redirects to raytheon.com think.com - Dead mcc.com - Redirects to thecryptogenius.com (sometimes, not sure what's going on with it) dec.com - Redirects to paulkocher.com northrop.com - Dead xerox.com - Alive, Xerox website sri.com - Alive hp.com - Alive, HP website bellcore.com - Dead ibm.com - Alive, IBM website sun.com - Alive, sun website (oracle.com) intel.com - Aliv…

I think we just took symbolics.com down. Doesn't load right now for me, i'm wondering how much traffic it normally sees.

Re: Oldest domains in the .com, .net, and .org TLDs

#17
post #14
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are single letter domains not allowed? surprised two letter domains are not more common.

x.com, but maybe it's not one of the oldest

There's x.org as well - the Open Group. But it wasn't registered until 1997.

Re: Oldest domains in the .com, .net, and .org TLDs

#18
post #10

Top 20: symbolics.com - Still exists bbn.com - Redirects to raytheon.com think.com - Dead mcc.com - Redirects to thecryptogenius.com (sometimes, not sure what's going on with it) dec.com - Redirects to paulkocher.com northrop.com - Dead xerox.com - Alive, Xerox website sri.com - Alive hp.com - Alive, HP website bellcore.com - Dead ibm.com - Alive, IBM website sun.com - Alive, sun website (oracle.com) intel.com - Aliv…

are single letter domains not allowed? surprised two letter domains are not more common.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-letter_second-level_dom...

tl;dr: IANA reserved all the single-letter domains in 1993, except for some that had been grandfathered in.

All the two-letter .com domains are registered, and only available on the secondary market.

Re: Oldest domains in the .com, .net, and .org TLDs

#20

Top 20: symbolics.com - Still exists bbn.com - Redirects to raytheon.com think.com - Dead mcc.com - Redirects to thecryptogenius.com (sometimes, not sure what's going on with it) dec.com - Redirects to paulkocher.com northrop.com - Dead xerox.com - Alive, Xerox website sri.com - Alive hp.com - Alive, HP website bellcore.com - Dead ibm.com - Alive, IBM website sun.com - Alive, sun website (oracle.com) intel.com - Aliv…

Speaking of DEC.com, it was purchased for $57,500 few years ago by Paul Kocher. I'd say it was a bargain, considering the rich heritage of DEC and it's alexa ranking.
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