During the past few years, I've noticed an increase in the use of customized and abstract top level domain (TLD) names, such as bit. ly , bu. mp , babyli. st , etc. Even Microsoft recently registered bi. ng , and .42 has also been created. (UPDATE: Thanks to commenter tjogin for pointing out that they in fact are all country TLDs. .ly > Libya, .st->São Tomé and Príncipe, etc.) Until recently, I believed that top level domains were few, and that each served its purpose ( .com for commercial use, .edu for education, .gov for the US government, etc). The increase in usage of non-.com TLDs made me think that they are not a limitation, but that we can change them almost freely, presumed we have the knowledge to do it (Please, correct me if I am wrong and forgive my ignorance). Isn't it possible to make TLDs optional (or hidden)? Then typing just the readable part of the domain - second level domain - (e.g. google instead of google.com ) could send you to the the a