.to
Encyclopedia
.to is the Internet
country code
top-level domain
(ccTLD) of the island kingdom of Tonga
.
The government of Tonga sells domains in its ccTLD to any interested party. Because to is a common English preposition, it became popular to craft memorable URLs called domain hack
s that take advantage of this, such as the URL shortening
service go.to. Other domain hacks which don't use the to as a preposition include Daniel Bernstein's websitecr.yp.to and uploading services like uloz.to (which means "save it" in Czech
).
The .to ccTLD is administered by the Tonga Network Information Center (Tonic).
The city of Toronto
, in Ontario
, Canada
, has TO as its nickname. Therefore, the .to extension is used by some small businesses located in Toronto, despite Canada's own .ca
.
As the .to domains are paid for, all normal DNS operations are possible and registered sites are not required to display ads on behalf of the registrar. Some domains are free, like .edu.to, but only to real Tongan educational institutions. At this moment businesses registered in Tonga can also get free domains. People who sell on .to domains can claim a bonus.
.to is one of the few ccTLDs that (officially) does not maintain a (public) WHOIS
database providing registrant information.
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) of the island kingdom of Tonga
Tonga
Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga , is a state and an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising 176 islands scattered over of ocean in the South Pacific...
.
The government of Tonga sells domains in its ccTLD to any interested party. Because to is a common English preposition, it became popular to craft memorable URLs called 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...
s that take advantage of this, such as the URL shortening
URL shortening
URL shortening is a technique on the World Wide Web in which a Uniform Resource Locator may be made substantially shorter in length and still direct to the required page. This is achieved by using an HTTP Redirect on a domain name that is short, which links to the web page that has a long URL...
service go.to. Other domain hacks which don't use the to as a preposition include Daniel Bernstein's website
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
).
The .to ccTLD is administered by the Tonga Network Information Center (Tonic).
The city of Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, in Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, has TO as its nickname. Therefore, the .to extension is used by some small businesses located in Toronto, despite Canada's own .ca
.ca
.ca is the Internet country code top-level domain for Canada. The domain name registry that operates it is the Canadian Internet Registration Authority . Registrants of .ca domains must meet the Canadian Presence Requirements as defined by the registry...
.
As the .to domains are paid for, all normal DNS operations are possible and registered sites are not required to display ads on behalf of the registrar. Some domains are free, like .edu.to, but only to real Tongan educational institutions. At this moment businesses registered in Tonga can also get free domains. People who sell on .to domains can claim a bonus.
.to is one of the few ccTLDs that (officially) does not maintain a (public) WHOIS
WHOIS
WHOIS is a query and response protocol that is widely used for querying databases that store the registered users or assignees of an Internet resource, such as a domain name, an IP address block, or an autonomous system, but is also used for a wider range of other information. The protocol stores...
database providing registrant information.