First Dot-com Celebrates 25th Birthday

Exactly 25 years ago, computer manufacturer Symbolics, Inc, registered the first .com web domain ever: symbolics.com. By today’s design standards, and considering how websites looked back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, it’s quite decent, although a bit short on content.

However, its content and even the (now defunct) company that registered it are far less important than the boom it ignited: In 1997, one million .com web domains were registered, and in 2000 the .com bubble peaked, resulting in an inevitable meltdown.

And while the .com crash proved that a well-chosen name isn’t enough for a successful company, .coms still play a very important part of our online lives. Despite many other top-level domains available, .com is still the most coveted TLD — the one that many people still associate with the world wide web in general. Right now, about 668,000 .com sites are registered every month; quite a jump from the six web domains registered in 1985, don’t you think?