Internet Marketing and Web Development Resources
Home Site Map About Contact

Domainers Glossary and Abbreviations


Domainers Glossary and Abbreviations
Glossary of terms and list of important abbreviations used frequently by domainers, people who own a large number of domain names. The glossary is still incomplete, but I am working on it. :)

If you are a serious "domainer", visit my Domain Names Research and Management Resources page which provides tools for domain typo suggestions and domain name analyser tools, expired domains/domain drop services, domain portfolio management services and information about how to monetize your parked domains. If you only want to register a domain for you or your business, check out my Domain Registration Resources and Services.


ACPA
Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, also called Cyberpiracy Provisions of the Lanham Act, Federal Law 15 USC (US Code) 1125(d) "False designations of origin, false descriptions, and dilution forbidden" / "Cyberpiracy prevention"
AfriNIC
African Network Information Centre for Africa Region (Since 8 April 2005, handled before by ARIN & RIPE NCC, see this) (afrinic.net)
APJII
Asosiasi Penyelenggara Jasa Internet Indonesia, responsible RIR: APNIC
APNIC
Asia Pacific Network Information Centre for the Asia/Pacific Region (www.apnic.net/org)
ARIN
American Registry for Internet Numbers for the North America Region (www.arin.net) established as InterNIC in 1993 (arin.net)
ASIA
(or .ASIA) is a new Generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) created in 2008 for the use by Asian entities across all countries in Asia (country independent).
ASO
Address Supporting Organization (see Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) from 29 October 2004) by NRO and ICANN
Bulk
Doing something with large quantities. Domainers often own large number of domain names and process them in large volumes rather than for each single domain individually.
ccSLD
Country Code Second Level Domain is the SLD for a country code TLD. Some countries like the UK use it to indicate the type of site, just like the .com/.net and .org domains do at the top level. The actual domain name registered at the domain name registry responsible for the management of the .UK top-level domain are third-level domains, after selecting the appropriate second-level domain. Examples: "ac" as in ac.uk is used for academic institution, while "co" as in co.uk is for the use by Companies.
ccTLD
Country Code Top Level Domain (e.g. .de, .fr, .us, .uk etc.) List of ccTLDs
CNNIC
China Network Information Center, responsible RIR: APNIC
CPA
Cost per Action
CPC
Cost per Click
Cybersquatting
Registering a domain that is a common misspelling of another website, usually typo variations of a well known brand and/or trandemark/servicemark or alternative TLDs or ccTLDs for the official website e.g. BestBuy.net instead of BestBuy.com. See also Wikipedia article.
DNS
Domain Name System, a set of protocols and specifications to resolve the Domain that is part of the URL to an IP Address for the TCP/IP transfer protocol, which is used for the communication between the web browser and the webserver where the website is hosted.
DN
Domain Name. Part of the URL, which can be registered by a person or organization at either a LIR or NIR, as long as nobody else registered the same domain name already. The domain name has to be unique for a TLD or ccTLD, for example "google.com": Google is the domain name and .com is the gTLD. Nobody else can register google.com, but google.net might be available, if it was not registered by somebody else. Some domain names are not allowed to register (anymore). See details to domain name restrictions at the ICANN website here and here.
Domain
The combination of Domain Name and either gTLD or ccTLD. In some cases also the SLD. A domain is unquie on the World Wide Web and can only be owned/registered by a single entity.
Drop
A domain registration is limited in time and has to be renewed by the registrant. If the registrant fails to renew the registration for a domain, it will be dropped and become available again for anybody to register it.
EAI
Email Address Internationalization
gTLD
see TLD
IANA
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
ICANN
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers at icann.org
IDN
International Domain Name
IDNIC
India Network Information Center (INIR -Indian National Internet Registry), responsible RIR: APNIC
INIR
ss IDNIC
International Domain Name
A domain name that does not use American ASCII characters, but the foreign charcters used in other countries, such as cyrillic, arabic, chinese, japanese or korean charcters and symbols.
InterNIC
See ARIN
IPv4
IP-Address system used on the Internet, which was initially deployed on 1 January 1983. IPv4 address space assignment.
IRR
Internet Routing Registry
ISP
Internet service provider
JPNIC
Japan Network Information Center, responsible RIR: APNIC
KRNIC
Korean Network Information Center as sub organization of NIDA, the National Internet Development Agency of Korea, responsible RIR: APNIC
LACNIC
Regional Latin-American and Caribbean IP Address Registry for Latin America and some Caribbean Islands (7 November 2002, handled before by ARIN, see this) (lacnic.net)
LIR
Local Internet Registry, usually an ISP
NIC
Network Information Center
NICBR
NIC Brazil (nic.br), responsible RIR: LACNIC
NICCL
NIC Chile (nic.cl), responsible RIR: LACNIC
NICMX
Network Information Center Mexico (nic.mx), responsible RIR: LACNIC
NICUS
nic.us, responsible RIR: ARIN
NIDA
see KRMIC
NIR
National Internet registry, handles IP address allocations for IPs designated by the RIR for the region on a national level. See list with responsible RIR for each Country
Norid
Norid AS is the main keeper and administrator of the Norwegian country code, responsible RIR: RIPE
NRO
Number Resource Organization (http://www.nro.net/, NRO MoU from 24 October 2003) formed by the Regional Internet Registries
PPA
see CPA
PPC
see PPC
Registrar
see LIR
RIPE NCC
Réseaux IP Européens for Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia (www.ripe.net) established 1992
RIR
Regional Internet Registry (since 4 June 2001, see details)
SEO
Search Engine Optimization
SLD
Second Level Domain, in most cases what is referred to as the domain name and the part that comes before the TLD. In the case of Cumbrowski.com is "Cumbrowski" the SLD and ".COM" the TLD.
SSAC
Security and Stability Advisory Committee, an advisory body to the ICANN Board of Directors
sub-domain
A prefix before the seond or third level domain name. SLD for typical .com, .net etc. domains such as Google.com and third-level domains in countries like Great Britan who use SLDs to designate the purpose of the domain, such as Google.co.uk. The best known sub-domain in use is "www" such as in www.Google.com.

The sub domain must be configured by on the webserver and DNS server and is usually pointing to the same website, but it does not have to be. Subdomains are used by larger websites to provide a separate domain for a specific sub-set of content or features of the main website, for example adwords.google.com.
Tasting
Using the five days trial period offered by domain registrars to register a domain, test how much traffic it receives and then drop it without paying for it, if the traffic is not sufficient.
TLD
Top Level Domain (e.g. .COM, .net, .org, .info), also called "Generic Top-Level Domains". List of gTLDs
Transfer
moving a domain registration to another registrar and/or change the main registrant of a domain from one entity to another.
TWNIC
Taiwan Network Information Centre, responsible RIR: APNIC
Type-In Trafffic
Users sometimes "guess" possible and probable domain names and enter them into the browser address field, without ever have visited the site before or using a link to it from somewhere else.
Typosquatting
see cybersquatting
UDRP
Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy by ICANN (details)
UNINETT
see Norid
URI
Unique Resource Identifier, The name of the object or resource requested by the user. The URL is often referred to as URI in combination with the Web.
URL
Uniform Resource Locator also referred to as Universal Resource Locator is the address that defines the route to a file on the World Wide Web. An URL consists of several parts, some are optional and some are required, such as sub-domain, domain name, (x)TLD, directory and file name.
URL hijacking
see cybersquatting
USPTO
United States Patent and Trademark Office (uspto.gov)
VNNIC
Vietnam Network Information Center, responsible RIR: APNIC

- top -