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Thematic TLD

In short: A TLD that expresses a subject area instead of a country or organisation, e.g. .shop, .dev, .blog, or .wiki.

In more detail: Thematic TLDs are part of the generic TLD (gTLD) list that has expanded greatly since 2012, and help make the purpose of a website recognisable already from the domain name. Registration rules (open to all vs. restricted) are set by the respective registry.

In Depth

Before the 2012 ICANN expansion, there were only a handful of fixed generic TLDs (.com, .net, .org, .info, .biz, among others). Since then, organisations have been able to apply for their own TLDs, which led to hundreds of new, often clearly theme-named endings — .shop for online retailers, .dev for developer projects, .blog for blogs, .app (which even technically enforces that every website under it is served via HTTPS, built directly into the TLD registration).

The advantage over a generic .com domain: a name like emzett.shop communicates the purpose of the site right in the URL, often shorter than a detour via extra words under .com (emzett-shop.com). The disadvantage: users are used to .com as the “default” and less often type thematic TLDs from memory into the address bar, which is why many companies register the .com variant in addition to the thematic TLD and redirect both to the same site.

See also: TLD, Open TLD, Restricted TLD