You may be familiar with some of the shorter internet domains used by big companies, such as m.me and fb.me from Facebook (Meta) and Twitter 's t.co URL shortener .
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However, it's possible that live domain names are even shorter than these options — and don't contain any dots, known as Dotless domains.
London- based software engineer James Williams has turned everyone's attention to domains that are even smaller than the widely known g.co or m.me.
Although the vast majority of internet domains contain TLDs separated by one or more dots, it turns out that it is not necessary for a domain.
In theory, for example, it would be possible for Internet regulators to allow top-level domains (TLDs) like com to be valid in their own right and have valid DNS that resolve to a server. If that were the case, navigating to https://com/ would present the user with a web page.
“There is nothing stopping TLD registry operators from providing A records at the top of their TLD zones,” Williams explained in a concise blog post last month.
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Williams compiled a list of TLDs that have valid DNS A records. While not all TLDs may display a web page when entered into a web browser, some of them do.
Visiting https://ai/ in Google Chrome , for example, presents a valid webpage, which you can otherwise access from the address: https://offshore.ai/.
In internal networks typically implemented by businesses, it is not uncommon to have Dotless domains that are accessible from within the company. For example, navigating to https://intranet/ or https://company/ may present valid websites visible only to staff and users on the corporate network.
But when it comes to the world wide web, this practice is neither widespread nor encouraged.
In 2013, the Internet regulator ICANN passed a resolution banning Dotless domains, stating that their use could be harmful, as these domains are typically expected to resolve in a local context (i.e. corporate network).
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“Dotless domains would require the inclusion of, for example, an A, AAAA, or MX record at the top of a TLD zone in DNS (i.e., the record is associated with the TLD string itself),” the earlier ICANN announcement states.
“Dotless domains would not be universally accessible and their use is discouraged. As a result, SSAC recommended that the use of DNS resource records such as A, AAAA, and MX at the top of a top-level domain (TLD) should be contractually prohibited where appropriate and strongly discouraged in all cases.“
