symbolics.com: The First .com Domain, Registered in 1985
On 15 March 1985 a Massachusetts computer company registered symbolics.com, the first .com domain name. Here is the story of that name and what came after.
Today there are an enormous number of registered domain names, and a good short name can sell for a large amount of money. The very first .com name was registered on 15 March 1985, and it belonged to a company that few people remember now: Symbolics, Inc.
Who was Symbolics?
Symbolics was a computer manufacturer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a spin-off from the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. It built Lisp machines, specialised workstations designed to run programs written in the Lisp language, which was popular in artificial intelligence research at the time. Its machines were used in research labs, and the company's name was well known in the AI community of the 1980s.
Because its customers were universities and research organisations, many of them were already connected to the network. For a company like that, getting a domain name made sense.
How the registration happened
The Domain Name System had been specified in 1983, and the first top-level domains had been defined in 1984. Names under them began to be registered in 1985. Registration was handled by the Network Information Center, then operated under contract by SRI International, and later by other organisations. There were no web registrars as we know them, no websites and no online forms. Registration was handled by the administrators of the network.
Symbolics registered symbolics.com on 15 March 1985. The company was a convenient first because it was an early network user, but it was not the only one. A few more commercial names followed over the next months, among them the names of other technology companies, and by the end of 1985 only a small number of .com names existed. The name space did not fill quickly. Commercial use of the network was still limited by acceptable-use policies on the backbone networks, and the web did not yet exist.
What happened to Symbolics
The company's fortunes turned in the late 1980s. The market for specialised Lisp machines collapsed as general-purpose workstations and personal computers became powerful enough to run the same software much more cheaply. Symbolics went through financial trouble in the early 1990s and eventually filed for bankruptcy protection. The company's technology and brand lived on in some form, but its place in history had already been secured by the domain.
The domain itself has remained registered. It changed hands in 2009 when it was acquired by an investment company, and it has since been maintained as a small site about the history of the domain and of the company. It has often been described as the oldest continuously registered .com name.
From a handful of names to a global namespace
The structure created in the 1980s is still the basis of every website address.
- In the early 1990s, as the network opened to commercial traffic, registrations rose.
- In 1993 and 1994, the web made domain names matter to the public, and the number of registrations began to grow quickly.
- In 1998 the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was created to coordinate the namespace, and competition among registrars followed.
- New generic top-level domains (such as
.shopand.cloud) were introduced from 2013 onward.
Domain names became an asset class of their own, and the late 1990s saw many disputes over names that matched trademarks, which led to dispute-resolution procedures that still exist.
Lessons from the first .com
| Observation | What it means for you today |
|---|---|
| Symbolics registered early, and the name has stayed registered ever since | Register your business name before you need it |
| The company disappeared, the domain did not | A domain can outlive the business that registered it, so keep renewals and contact details current |
| Ownership is a record in a database | Control of the account where your domain is registered is control of your domain |
Choosing a domain name today
The early registrations were generally company names, and that remains a sound approach. A few practical habits come from decades of experience with domain names:
- Pick a name that is easy to say aloud and to spell, because people will type it and mention it in conversation.
- Avoid hyphens and unusual spellings unless there is a reason, since they cause typing mistakes.
- Check that the name does not infringe someone else's trademark.
- Consider registering the obvious variants, such as your country's domain, to prevent confusion.
Whichever extension you choose, remember that the domain and the hosting are separate things. You can register a name at one company and host the site at another, and you can change hosts later without changing the address visitors use. If you need help moving a site to a new provider, see our migration page.
What to do with this history
The practical points are simple. Register your domain under your own account, with an email address you control, and switch on automatic renewal. Keep your name server settings documented, so you can reconnect the domain if you move providers. When you are ready to put the domain to work, our hosting plans include everything needed to get a site online, and the knowledgebase explains how to connect your domain to it.
