What Was The First Ever Registered Domain Name?

The first-ever registered domain name was Symbolics.com. On top of that, symbolics.com is also the oldest domain name ever. Ultimately, symbolics.com is the first-ever .com domain in history.

Who Registered The First .com Domain Ever?

The first .com domain ever was registered by Symbolics Inc. It was a computer system company from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Symbolics Inc. listed the first-ever domain name on March 15, 1985.

The company Symbolics Inc. was best known for designing and manufacturing a line of Lisp machines, computers optimized to run the Lisp programming.

What Does .com Stand For?

.com is a domain suffix used to designate commercial websites. The first ever commercial website, symbolics.com, is still active under the original URL today. However, the company Napkin.com purchased it in August 2009 for an unknown price.

What Is The Oldest Domain Name Ever?

Title of the oldest domain name goes to Nordu.net. That said, Symbolics.com is not the oldest domain name.

Created on January 1, 1985, Nordu.net served as the identifier (hosting) of the first root server ever, nic.nordu.net.

Who Registered The Oldest Domain Name?

NORDUnet registered the oldest domain name – nordu.net. NORDUnet is a non-profit company, a network for research and education, limited by shares between Nordic countries.

But that doesn’t change the fact that Symbolics.com was the first commercial (.com) domain name ever. And also the first domain registered In Domain Name System. Now, if you are wondering what is DNS let’s go through that briefly.

What is the Domain Name System (DNS)?

In short, DNS is a database that connects domain name (hostname) – let’s say Symbolics.com – to a specific IP address. In this case, 192.10.10.47. Ultimately, the Domain Name System (DNS) is a massive global website address book.

What Is An IP Address?

An IP address means An Internet Protocol address. An IP address is a mathematical characterisation that determines computer services and devices around the digital world.

When Was Domain Name System (DNS) Created?

Surprisingly, the Domain Name System (DNS) was created in 1983. This was 6 years before the World Wide Web was created. WWW and the entire Internet relies on the Domain Name System (DNS).

Honestly, would you rather remember and type in Google 192.10.10.47 or Symbolics.com? Yeah, I thought so 🙂

What Were The First Ever Top Level Domains (TLD)?

Also worth mentioning, the oldest and first-ever top-level domains or TLDs, were: .arpa, .net, .org, .edu, .gov, .int, .mil and .com.

Now when we’ve got that covered, let’s see what were the top 10 first-ever domain names.

List Of The First 10 Registered Domain Names?

Domain name	Date registered	Registered to
symbolics.com	March 15, 1985	Symbolics Inc.
bbn.com	April 24, 1985	BBN Technologies
think.com	May 24, 1985	Thinking Machines
mcc.com	July 11, 1985	Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation
dec.com	September 30, 1985	Digital Equipment Corporation
northrop.com	November 7, 1985	Northrop Corporation
xerox.com	January 9, 1986	Xerox
sri.com	January 17, 1986	SRI International
hp.com	March 3, 1986	Hewlett-Packard
bellcore.com	March 5, 1986	Bell Communications Research

Can a Domain Name Be Misleading?

No, it can not. So, what happens if a domain name is misleading?

For example “Teltubbies.com” until 2003 led to an obscene site called “Hanky Panky College.”As you can see, that can be a big problem.

Fortunately, in 2003 The USA government issued a law for preventing child abuse.

The First-Ever Internet Law – The P.R.O.T.E.C.T. Act

Called “The P.R.O.T.E.C.T. Act of 2003”, among other things, incorporates the Truth in Domain Names Act (TDNA) and, it imposes penalties for the distribution of obscenity, imprisonment of copulation offenders and many other acts for preventing child abuse as well as violent crimes against children.

Who Was The First-Ever Domain Seller?

“Network Solutions” was a company who first started selling domain names. As a result, since 1995 domain registration is no longer free.

And one more thing, or actually a spoiler, for those of you who are preparing to buy your first domain.

Up until 1995, anyone could register their domain name free of charge. However, the ”Network Solutions”, a tech consulting company, gained the ability to charge for the domain names.

Comparatively, ”Network Solutions” charged $100 for a two-year registration and today domain price is around $10 for a one-year registration.

Lastly, we have to mention the 8 most expensive domain names.

List Of The 8 Most Expensive Domain Names

Domain	Price	Sale date
LasVegas.com	$90 million	2005
CarInsurance.com	$49.7 million	2010
Insurance.com	$35.6 million	2010
PrivateJet.com	$30.18 million	2012
Internet.com	$18 million	2009
360.com	$17 million	2015
Insure.com	$16 million	2009
Fund.com	£9.99 million	2008

Is It Possible To Buy A Three Or Four Letter Domain Name?

No, it is no longer possible to buy a three or a four-letter domain name. Buying a three or a four-letter domain name, for example, aaaa.com all the way to zzzz.com, is no longer an option, since 2013.

Therefore, longer domain names will have to serve you, or if you can afford the prices listed above, you can do whatever you want. 🙂

To wrap this up, we hope you liked this article and learned something new. If you want to learn even more about the beginnings of the Internet as we know it today, check our article “What was the first website ever created.”