.ws
Encyclopedia
.ws is the Internet
country code
top-level domain
(ccTLD) for Samoa
. It is administered by SamoaNIC, for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of Samoa.
The .ws domain is an abbreviation for "Western Samoa", which was the nation's official name in the 1970s when two-letter country codes were standardized. While there are no geographic restrictions on registration of most second-level .ws domains, .ORG.WS, .GOV.WS, and .EDU.WS registration is restricted.
Prior to March 14, 2008, .WS domains were not allowed to be transferred from one domain registrar to another.
.ws has been marketed as a domain hack
, with the .ws purportedly standing for "World Site" or "Web site", providing a "global" internet presence to registrants. .ws coincidentally supports all internationalized domain name
s.
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
country code
Country code
Country codes are short alphabetic or numeric geographical codes developed to represent countries and dependent areas, for use in data processing and communications. Several different systems have been developed to do this. The best known of these is ISO 3166-1...
top-level domain
Top-level domain
A top-level domain is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in lower levels, it is the last part of the domain name, that is, the last label of a...
(ccTLD) for Samoa
Samoa
Samoa , officially the Independent State of Samoa, formerly known as Western Samoa is a country encompassing the western part of the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. It became independent from New Zealand in 1962. The two main islands of Samoa are Upolu and one of the biggest islands in...
. It is administered by SamoaNIC, for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of Samoa.
The .ws domain is an abbreviation for "Western Samoa", which was the nation's official name in the 1970s when two-letter country codes were standardized. While there are no geographic restrictions on registration of most second-level .ws domains, .ORG.WS, .GOV.WS, and .EDU.WS registration is restricted.
Prior to March 14, 2008, .WS domains were not allowed to be transferred from one domain registrar to another.
.ws has been marketed as a domain hack
Domain hack
A domain hack is an unconventional domain name that combines domain levels, especially the top-level domain , to spell out the full "name" or title of the domain. Examples include del.icio.us , goo.gl and fold.it...
, with the .ws purportedly standing for "World Site" or "Web site", providing a "global" internet presence to registrants. .ws coincidentally supports all internationalized domain name
Internationalized domain name
An internationalized domain name is an Internet domain name that contains at least one label that is displayed in software applications, in whole or in part, in a language-specific script or alphabet, such as Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Hindi or the Latin alphabet-based characters with diacritics,...
s.
External links
- IANA .ws whois information
- SamoaNIC.ws (for registrants in Samoa and some nearby countries)