The story of the world's most recognized web address extension began when the internet had no storefronts, credit card portals, or streaming networks. In the early 1980s, the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) relied on a centralized, flat text document known as `HOSTS.TXT`. Maintained manually by Elizabeth Feinler and her team at the Stanford Research Institute, this master list mapped numeric IP addresses to human-readable names.
As university departments and defense contractors flooded the network, the centralized registry buckled under the administrative load. Computer scientist Paul Mockapetris designed the Domain Name System (DNS) to distribute administrative authority across a hierarchical tree structure.
In October 1984, computer scientist Jon Postel and civil engineer Joyce K. Reynolds published RFC 920 internet standard, a technical document defining the original domain naming framework. RFC 920 established that top-level domains should reflect distinct organizational functions across the network. The document set up six original top-level domain (TLD) classifications: `.gov`, `.mil`, `.edu`, `.org`, `.net`, and `.com`.
On March 15, 1985, Massachusetts-based computer manufacturer Symbolics registered `symbolics.com`, making it the first registered commercial domain in internet history. At the time, sending commercial traffic over the government-funded backbone remained strictly banned under Acceptable Use Policies.
