Third-level dotcoms gone

UK-based registry CentralNic is closing up online micro-communities under a number of second-level domains including gb.com and se.com.

In about a year's time – April 30, 2017 – domain names sold under ar.com, gb.com, hu.com, kr.com, qc.com, no.com. se.com and uy.com will no longer work.

CentralNic has been offering names under each – such as "example.gb.com" – for many years due to a shortage in straight dot-com names. The way the domain name system works, however, there is an owner of the each second-level domain and they are ultimately in charge of everything underneath it.

This third-level approach has never been wildly popular but the introduction of hundreds of new dot-word domains in the past few years has made the second-level names more valuable by themselves than serving as umbrellas for other names.

As a way of easing the transition, the company is offering two years of free registration under another name. Both .xyz and .co.com are also offering their wares to CentralNic customers. ®