.info

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Top-level domain .info
introduction June 26, 2001
category generic
Registry Afilias
Award unrestricted
number 5.89 million (September 2017)

.info is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) launched on June 26, 2001 and operated by the Irish Internet service provider Afilias . It is offered as an alternative to .com and .net , where many attractive and short addresses are already taken. The abbreviation info stands for information .

history

The top-level domain .info was introduced by ICANN in 2001 as part of the program for new generic TLDs . Afilias had numerous difficulties in the start-up phase and had to extend the pre-registration period several times so that brand owners could enforce their claims. In 2003, .info was the first top-level domain to support internationalized domain names based on the IDNA standard. Since then, it has also been possible to register German umlauts.

In 2011, .info was one of the most popular TLDs worldwide with over eight million registered domains. The provider Afilias advertised them intensively, including through unusual campaigns such as the so-called spotting contest in summer 2011. In summer 2012, .info recorded a notable decline for the first time since its introduction. Since then, the number of registrations has dropped significantly and in mid-2016 was only 8th worldwide with only 5.5 million. At the beginning of 2017 only 10th place was achieved.

criteria

In total, an .info domain can be between three and 63 characters long, and any combination of numbers and letters is permitted. Hyphens can be used, but must not appear at the beginning, the end or in the third and fourth positions. The use of German umlauts in internationalized domain names is possible; other characters are currently not supported.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Delegation Record for .INFO. IANA , accessed February 14, 2013 .
  2. ↑ .info with difficulties. In: heise online. June 16, 2001. Retrieved August 9, 2012 .
  3. ↑ Florian Hitzelberger: .info is in the doldrums. In: domain-right. Retrieved August 9, 2012 .
  4. ↑ Florian Hitzelberger: Spotting Contest 2012. In: domain -recht. July 17, 2012, accessed August 9, 2012 .
  5. ↑ Statistics on the .info domain. In: Domains.info. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; accessed on January 14, 2015 .
  6. ↑ Lars Hoffhenke: Who actually still uses .info domains? In: DomainProvider.de Blog. September 15, 2014, accessed August 10, 2016 .
  7. ↑ Statistics - international comparison of domain numbers. Denic, January 2017, accessed January 19, 2017 .
  8. ↑ Properties of an .info domain. united-domains , accessed September 5, 2012 .
  9. ↑ .info domain. united-domains. Retrieved January 3, 2017 .