Domain hack

A domain hack is a domain name that suggests a word, phrase, or name when concatenating two or more adjacent levels of that domain. For example, "bir.ds" and "examp.le", using the fictitious country-code domains .ds and .le, suggest the word birds and example respectively. In this context, the word hack denotes a clever trick (as in programming), not an exploit or break-in (as in security).

Domain hacks offer the ability to produce short domain names. This makes them potentially valuable as redirectors, pastebins, base domains from which to delegate subdomains and URL shortening services.

History

On November 23, 1992, inter.net was registered. In the 1990s, several hostnames ending in "pla.net" were active. The concept of spelling out a phrase with the parts of a hostname to form a domain hack became well established. On Friday, May 3, 2002, icio.us was registered to create del.icio.us. Delicious would later gain control of the delicio.us domain, which had been parked since April 24, 2002, the day the .us ccTLD was opened to second-level registrations.