Module 4: inflite. Northampton Community College Libraries Tutorial.

Domain Name The domain name tells you the type of organization sponsoring a page. It is a three-letter code that is part of the URL and preceded by a "dot." Here are the most common domains.
.e d u	educational institution Even though a page comes from an educational institution, it does not mean the institution endorses the views published by students or faculty members.
.c o m	commercial entity Companies advertise, sell products, and publish annual reports and other company information on the Web. Many online newspapers or journals also have .com names.
.g o v	government Federal and state government agencies use the Web to publish legislation, census information, weather data, tax forms and many other documents.
.o r g	non-profit organization Nonprofit organizations use the Web to promote their causes. These pages are good sources to use when comparing different sides of an issue.
.n e t	used for internet service providers
Recently, the division between these top-level domains became blurred. Sometimes non-profit organizations and educational institutions are now found under .com or .net. This makes it more difficult to determine the organization that is publishing the page. The number of top-level domains is increasing. New domain names include .museum, .info, and .biz. The origin of some international sites can be determined by country codes found in the URL.