Top 5 Most Unique And Popular Domain Extensions

In today's world, there are billions of websites across the Internet and with various websites to choose from, higher creativity is required to differentiate between the addresses of these websites.

The registrar that supervises the Uniform Resource Locator or URL that determines every unique address of websites has introduced many improvements to ensure that the demands are always met.

Web owners have also become very creative in finding the best URL that can be easily remembered to maximize the number of users visiting. Some of you might have noticed that there are a few unique domain extensions that are rather popular like .io which all of a sudden has been widely used today.

So where did all these popular URLs come from and what is the story behind them all?

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1. ".io"

If you have been surfing the web in these past few years, you might have come across some websites using the URL ending with .io. This is especially true when these websites mostly come from the technology and video games niche.

Some of you might think that .io stands for the syntax "input/output" which is closely related to computer technology. Well, I'm afraid it's not.

.io truly refers to the British Indian Ocean Territory(BIOT) which is located in the Indian Ocean between Tanzania and Indonesia and brings the meaning of the word itself, "Indian Ocean".

In the beginning, this URL was regulated by a British businessman named Paul Kane starting in 1997 before the right of the license was sold in 2017. Kana was said to have collected millions of dollars from the sale of the URL to the public.

Following the demands of the original people there especially the Chagos that are still ongoing to this day, challenged the intrusion of the Brits and Americans. This of course also included this particular URL which became one of the issues that were raised.

One of the claims made by the natives was that the British government took back all the profits made from the sale of the URL with the prefix .io from the original communities in that territory.

2. ".fm"

This is a URL that was said to be quite unique and has been benefited by many radio stations across the Internet. The URL with the prefix .fm, in the end, was seen to be very synonymous with wireless radio stations.

Last.FM will be among the famous radio stations to utilize this ending for their domain. But the '.fm' here does not refer to frequency modulator but instead represents the Micronesia Islands that are situated in the Pacific Ocean.

The full name of the local authority there will be the Federated States of Micronesia. In order to represent the communities living there, they decided to give the prefix ".fm" in the end.

It is also very suitable for music lovers since most radio stations on the internet have oriented music with this address such as setlist.fm, tastebuds,.fm, and also libre.fm.

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3. ".gg"

Most gamers will be aware of this prefix gg as it is highly related to video games and it is mostly used while gaming meaning good game or git gud(get good) in a sarcastic way.

Similar to other nations that used such domain names to generate a profit, ".gg" was also a prefix used to represent the government of the Bailiwick of Guernsey. It is an island located between France and England and is ruled as part of the United Kingdom.

Since it resembles the popular culture of video games, this URL is very popular among such genres. Most popular websites out there that end with ".gg" like op.gg, u.gg, and tracker.gg are websites specially built to cater to various video games available.

4. ".tv"

Tuvalu Island is now facing the possibility of being flooded due to the rising sea levels of climate change. It is predicted that in 50 years' time, the whole Island will be gone for good.

To ensure that the lives of the people are sustained, every year 75 people from the Island will be moved to New Zealand until the migration of 11,300 people of the population is completed.

So what's up with this story all of a sudden? Well, the URL ".tv" despite being referred to as television, is actually Tuvalu Island.

The sale of the nation's URL has become one of the crucial methods for the country to generate an income with 1/12 of the country's budget coming from this sale. If mother nature suddenly engulfs the land of Tuvalu from this Earth, then all URLs ending with the prefix".tv" will also cease to exist.

This will give a huge impact on web streaming videos such as Twitch.tv which highly depends on the identity of this unique address.

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5. ".ai"

If the trend that highly depends on artificial intelligence is expanding, we are confident that many people will start scrambling to get their hands on the final URL with the prefix ".ai".

It was specially made from the Anguilla nation, and the users must also comply with the following sets of rules. All registration using the domain ".ai" must be done for a minimum period of 2 years.

It must also be used in businesses or services, obeying the law of Anguilla as well as free from any forms of crime.

Similar to Tuvalu, the sale of this Anguilla-owned URL has become a source of income for their community with it generating up to $3 million following its popularity.

One of the websites that have utilized this prefix will be facebook.ai which is one division in Facebook/Meta that was established specifically to develop an artificial intelligence system known as CICERO.

Source:

• Iluminasi

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