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Sorry if this question sounds weird but I would like to learn about this more and searching this on google gives me results about other keywords after coming to the word about. I think that's how Google is designed to work, so it gives me no information about https://about.

What is this domain about.*? Examples:

  1. https://about.me
  2. https://about.google

I understand that I can have about.mydomain.com but how come the above 2 domains do not have any extension at the end?

Is it possible for a normal user like us to have https://about.myname? i.e. https://about.kelsey?

Alok Nath
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    "do not have any extension at the end?" You are wrong, they do have. First, please don't say "extension", this is wrong terminology. They have a TLD or Top LEvel Domain, in first case `me`, in second case `google`. Yes those are valid existing TLDs, first one for a country, second one added due to ICANN 2012 round. You can see at https://www.iana.org/domains/root/db the current list of all TLDs existing, and this is the authoritative source on the subject. – Patrick Mevzek Aug 11 '22 at 14:43
  • @PatrickMevzek sounds fair to me. Can you please write this as an Answer so that I can approve it? – Alok Nath Aug 12 '22 at 11:17

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TLDs are set up by ICANN, which, after approval, designates a registry that can assign domains under that TLD. So if you're influential enough to get ICANN to approve .kelsey, you're good to go; Google managed to do exactly that, hence the about.google URL. In many other cases, people use TLDs that have been assigned for a particular country as if they were generic (i.e., non-country-based) TLDs simply because they coincidentally look like one. .me, for instance, is the country TLD for the European country of Montenegro, it was originally not designed to have anything to do with the English pronoun "me". Similarly, TV stations like to use the TLD .tv, which was assigned to the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu. And that country specifically markets its domain names to TV stations.

Schnitte
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    "So if you're influential enough to get ICANN to approve .kelsey, you're good to go;" No, it doesn't work like that. There is a process to follow. Or there was in 2012, which triggered 1500+ new TLDs in the root, and nothing for now but that process will resume "one day". You will have to submit an application, fill out lots of paperwork and shell out some money. – Patrick Mevzek Aug 11 '22 at 14:38
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    ICANN just inherited the ccTLD/gTLD organization split. It has no power over ccTLDs, which are delegated to countries, and whose government then delegates technically to some registry, and then it is up to them (depending on the government-registry contract) to decide how the TLD is marketed. There are lots of examples of TLDs being sold not for their face value of being a ccTLD: `ws` (for websites), `la` (for Los Angeles), `ph` (for Pharmacies), `co` (for companies), etc. – Patrick Mevzek Aug 11 '22 at 14:42