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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-24T13:58:51+00:00

Anyone know what the correct term is for a minimal (IP) domain name which

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Anyone know what the correct term is for a minimal (IP) domain name which intuitively indicates a domain registered through “typical” channels?

E.g., the term would indicate
– google.com
– bbc.co.uk

But not:
– www.google.com
– code.google.com
– co.uk

(The term second-level domain doesn’t quite work beacuse of the latter counter-example, where co. is the second-level domain name hosted within the .uk country code top-level domain. Maybe such a term does not exist?)

EDIT Hmm… can’t self-answer for another 6 hours. Boo.

AFAICS, there’s no concrete/authoritative term.

In The Art of SEO By Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer, Rand Fishkin, Jessie C. Stricchiola, they use terms like complete root domain/host domain/pay-level domain/second-level domain. As far as I can see, none of these terms is standard, and the latter term is actually strictly incorrect/ambiguous. Similar discussion is available on this page.

nist.gov use the term enterprise-level domain, but again it’s equated with second-level domain and used conflictingly in this report for third/fourth/etc. level domains.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The Mozilla Foundation uses the term Public Suffix to describe domains that can be registered through typical channels, which it defines to include .com, .co.uk, and pvt.k12.wy.us. The usage of this terminology may not be standard, however.

    Edit: The Wikipedia entry on the Public Suffix list uses the term “effective top level domain”, which appears to describe this concept, although it doesn’t appear to be in widespread use.

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