Why can't I use a period in my domain name like other sites do?

July 7, 2009 9:23 AM

Let's say my name is Fred McMurry. Let's say that I want a new domain name for myself, but I don't want fredmcmurry.net or fred-mcmurry.net but rather I want fred.mcmurry.net -- it seems that the rule is no periods in your domain name. Okay, got it, except why does google have maps.google.com and mail.google.com -- maybe someone here can tell me how I can buy mcmurry.net and then turn that into fred.mcmurry.net?

I mean, rules are rules, right? Why do larger organizations use whatever.google.com; is mail.google.com a subdomain of google.com? And, since they can do that, why can't I? Or can I?

posted by dancestoblue to computers & internet (13 comments total)

It's called a subdomain and can generally be handled with a few clicks through your web host.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:25 AM on July 7

You would register mcmurry.net and set up a subdomain fred. You would/should be able to do that as the admin of your domain.
posted by chillmost at 9:25 AM on July 7

To be more specific, you can make any number of subdomains when you own the domain. Some hosts limit you to 50, but there is no cap, really.
so :
fred.mcmurry.net
bob.mcmurry.net
tom.mcmurry.net

Your hosts control panel will show you how.
posted by BrodieShadeTree at 9:28 AM on July 7

Yeah, as long as you are the "master of your domain", you should be able to set up www.mcmurray.net, fred.mcmurray.net, or whatever.mcmurray.net.
posted by Precision at 9:28 AM on July 7

The trick being, you have to be able to register mcmurry.net, which, depending on your real name, may be a lot more likely to be taken then fred-mcmurry.net

My name, forget it. I had to throw in my middle initial.
posted by Naberius at 9:33 AM on July 7

What they said.

In an oversimplified way, you can think of mcmurry.com/fred and fred.mcmurry.com as kind of sort of the same thing.
posted by ttyn at 9:49 AM on July 7 [1 favorite]

Thanx so much, gang -- I started giving everyone 'best answer' but ... Seems I'm the only person online who didn't know about this, or for sure the only person here on metafilter. A thousand thanx!

Peace.
posted by dancestoblue at 9:51 AM on July 7

The trick being, you have to be able to register mcmurry.net, which, depending on your real name, may be a lot more likely to be taken then fred-mcmurry.net
posted by Naberius at 11:33 AM on July 7

As you said, the name I wanted to use is gone. Dang...

But, fred-mcmurry.net is still available, so looks like I'm headed in that direction, the dash just not quite as simple as the dot.

Thanx again all.
posted by dancestoblue at 10:06 AM on July 7

Check out domai.nr if you want to get creative with non .com/.net/.org type variations of your name.
posted by ttyn at 10:58 AM on July 7 [1 favorite]

You might also try checking the .name top-level domain, e.g. fred.mcmurry.name.
posted by ijoshua at 2:23 PM on July 7

also be aware of the other tld's, especially ccTLD's:

mcmurray.tv
mcmurray.me
mcmurray.pro
mcmurray.us
mcmurray.biz


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country-code_top-level_domain#Commercial_and_vanity_use

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GTLD
posted by at at 2:45 PM on July 7

Maybe obvious, but you don't need to stop at 2 dots. my.name.is.fred.mcmurry.com would be fine.
There isn't a TLD which would allow fr.ed.mc.mur.ry, sadly.
posted by mjg123 at 3:00 PM on July 7

You can also do fun stuff with the subdomains. You can point different services at them, serve different sites off them, etc.
posted by cjorgensen at 6:19 PM on July 7