How do custom top level domains like you can get from Neocities work? For example, corru.observer and corru.works. My understanding is that making your own domain name is really hard or expensive, and a custom TLD is harder. And i’m pretty sure Neocities is run by one guy, so surely it can’t be that hard to set up a domain name as an individual.

  • hornywarthogfart@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    51·
    11 days ago

    You know how with libraries you go, find a book, and then check it out and take it home? After some time you have to take it back and return it and then you can either get another book or you can renew your checkout and keep the book a bit longer. This is what is happening when people are registering domains. It’s also what’s happening when an organization applies to own a new top level domain.

    Let me explain. There are two different things this question could be in reference to: registering a domain and creating an entirely new top level domain (like .com, .net, .edu). Let’s start with creating an entirely new top level domain:

    So the tip top level is run by ICANN which maintains the “golden standard” list of who owns what domain and top level domain. This organization will only point traffic to you if you are registered with them for the top level domain. This is very expensive, time consuming, and has a thorough vetting process before you are approved. If you are approved, they will point traffic to you and you can then point the traffic to the appropriate domain. There is a process to maintain ownership of the top level domain so you need to keep the registry up to date to keep ownership including paying fees and maintaining certain standards and paperwork.

    The next level is a company that works in the middle of the owner of the top level domain and the average person who wants to register a domain. GoDaddy is an example of a company like this. They work with the owners to hand out domains for a fee. This leads to the next level of your question:

    Much like the tip top level will register top level domains to organizations/businesses/etc., those same organizations/businesses/etc. can then turn around and sell any combination of characters before the top level domain. For example, if you owned .mybutt and it was approved and active, then anyone who wanted a domain that ended in .mybutt would need to be approved by you. Registering a domain at this level is generally pretty cheap compared to Top levels and most people pay just a few bucks for them. (with some exceptions)

    You are the library in this scenario and the books are the domains. You can check out domains to people but they have to bring them back at some point or keep paying.

    You in turn go to ICANN (a higher level library) to checkout a top level domain that you can then control.