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 answers 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, 2009

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, 2009

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, 2009

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, 2009

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, 2009

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, 2009

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, 2009

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, 2009

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, 2009

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, 2009

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, 2009

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, 2009

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, 2009