Domain Hacking Using International TLDs

Originally, I had my blog located on what they call a “hacked” domain. I acquired the domain ERIO.US (hacked into myst.erio.us) a few years back. The plan was to create a personal blog space and I liked the name because it sounded rather mysterious—definite pun indended. The problem was trying to get people to the site via word-of-mouth!

More often than not, people didn’t remember the little periods and ended up somewhere they didn’t want to be. At any rate, domain hacks were kind of born out of the popular bookmarking site, del.icio.us which was then bought by Yahoo! and subsequently changed to delicious.com. Obviously they didn’t like the domain hack either.

Domain Hacks

Originally, domain hacks were simply single words that could be split at various breaking points with the final break being between the domain and the domain extension. For example, the domain inter.net is nothing more than the word inter, but because it uses the .net extension, it becomes the word internet.

Here are some other domain hacks that either were or still are popular:

• Who.is – The term whois is a networking term that describes a service used to display the ownership records of a domain name.
• Blo.gs – This site was also purchased by Yahoo! and is a blogroll type of service that allows you to keep tabs on all your favorite blogs.
• Goo.gl – Google’s own URL shortener service. Basically you take a really long URL and shrink it down to something more manageable. You can see my own URL shortening service at frg.gy.
• E.xplo.it – This domain requires two hacks using a third-level sub-domain (e) to make it spell exploit.
• Cr.yp.to – Another third-level sub-domain hack spelling the word crypto.
• i.am – This hack uses two real English words.

More information about domain hacks can be found at Wikipedia.

International Extensions

None of the above domains would be possible without the use of foreign domain extensions. If you weren’t aware of the many types of extensions available, basically each country in the world has its own 2-character extension for domain registration.

These extensions are popular because they are generally made up of letters that are used at the end of many English words. Some of these extensions are also popular because the two letters actually might spell a word itself or be an existing acronym. A few examples of this would be .FM and .AM (can be used for radio broadcasters) or .IT (if used to mean Information Technology).

One of the most popular international TLDs comes from the country of Montenegro; .ME. Because .me can add a personal touch to any domain name, many people are registering these names for blogs, family websites and even businesses. Other uses of a .ME domain could be various phrases such as For.me, Help.me, Fix.me, Sell.me and Date.me.

Having a hacked domain like For.me can yield so many other options when you start breaking the domain further up the line. You could create something like: Jobs.for.me, RealEstate.for.me or Entertainment.for.me. The possibilities are only limited to the words contained in the dictionary!

Erio.us

I own the domain erio.us and from that, I was able to make myst.erio.us and s.erio.us. I haven’t decided how I want to use the domain, which is why if you type it in, you’re redirected to this page! I can promise you that one day, I will develop a project around one (or all) of the hacks I can create with this one domain.