Domain hack

In the web world, there are hundreds of thousands of sites/ domains, so how do you differentiate your website from the others. Go in for Domain hack :)

A domain hack is an unconventional domain name that combines domain labels, especially the top-level domain (TLD), to spell out the full "name" or title of the domain, making a kind of pun.

For example the domains http://blo.gs makes use of the TLD .gs (South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands) to spell "blogs", and http://chronolo.gy uses the TLD .gy (Guyana) to spell "chronology".

The domains del.icio.us, an.geli.ca, and cr.yp.to make use of the TLDs .us (United States) , .ca (Canada) and .to (Tonga) to spell "delicious", "angelica", and "crypto" respectively.

In the context of domain hack, the "hack" represents a clever trick, and not a break-in (as in security).

Del.icio.us, is a social bookmarking site created by internet guru Joshua Schachter. The name was catchy, and it quickly became an internet celebrity. Del.icio.us, though not the first domain of this nature, is the best-known and most frequently-accessed domain hack.

The demand for uniqueness and visibility in the cyber world gave rise to an ever growing list of domain hacks such as magnol.ia, win.gs, mir.aculo.us, videoDi.sk, inter.net, Who.is, buyhom.es, groo.ms, Whocalled.us – to name a few.

We all know, the TLD for India is .in. Here are some domain hacks on .in :) http://adm.in (admin), http://einste.in (Einstein) and http://doma.in (domain). And hey, What about http://sach.in? ;) (To my delight, Sach.in is not taken yet :))

.me is a Internet country code TLD that has been assigned to Montenegro. Now think of the numerous possibilities of playing with the .me TLD. :)