What Is .net? Domain Glossary

Why it matters

A .net sells best when the matching .com is taken or when the business is tech or network related. Buyers should compare the price gap carefully. A strong .net is usually worth far less than the same name in .com, and many buyers prefer to wait for the .com. Sellers of .net names should price with that in mind. A common mistake is buying the .net of a brand whose .com is held by a rival, hoping to resell to them. That can invite trademark trouble. Verisign charges the wholesale price, and it can rise over time under its contract.

Source: iana.org

Where we use this term

Related terms

.com: Dot-com is the most widely used top-level domain in the world. Verisign runs the .com registry, and it held about 166.6 million registrations in mid-2026.
Verisign: Verisign is the company that runs the .com and .net registries. It also maintains the DNS root zone under an agreement with ICANN. It reported 166.6 million .com registrations in mid-2026.
Legacy TLD: A legacy TLD is one of the older generic extensions that existed before ICANN's new gTLD program, mainly .com, .net, .org, .info, and .biz. Industry speakers use the term to separate them from newer extensions.
Generic top-level domain (gTLD): A gTLD is a top-level domain that is not tied to a country, such as .com, .org, .net, or hundreds of newer extensions like .app and .shop. ICANN sets the rules for the registry operators.
.org: .org is a legacy generic top-level domain, long linked with nonprofits and community groups. Public Interest Registry runs it as the registry operator, and registration is open to anyone.

All 205 terms

Why it matters

Where we use this term

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