What is the maximum length

[Hooper]

is it 256 characters? Or could you go longer?

[sextoyking]

Hoop,

isn't it something like 65 or 66 ??

[sarettah]

I thought it was 64 before the extension, so max of 68 with the extension, but then I found this
http://www.unidentified.co.uk/domainnameprices.htm

so apparently there are some variations on it..... but looks like .com/.org and .net are 68 max with extension

--------------------------------------------------------

.me.uk Name length restrictions: min 3 Characters

.co.uk
.org.uk Name length restrictions: min 3 Characters

.uk.com
.uk.net Name length restrictions: 3 to 68 Characters

.biz Name length restrictions: 3 to 68 Characters

.info Name length restrictions: 3 to 68 Characters

.tv Name length restrictions: 3 to 68 Characters

.com
.org Name length restrictions: 2 to 68 Characters

.ltd.uk
.plc.uk Name length restrictions: min 3 Characters
Domain name must match company name

.eu.com
.us.com Name length restrictions: 3 to 68 Characters

.gb.com
.gb.net Name length restrictions: 3 to 68 Characters

.net
.net.uk Name length restrictions: 2 to 68 Characters
Name length restrictions: min 3 Characters

.br.com
.cn.com Name length restrictions: 3 to 68 Characters

.hu.com
.no.com Name length restrictions: 3 to 68 Characters

.qc.com
.ru.com Name length restrictions: 3 to 68 Characters

.sa.com
.se.com Name length restrictions: 3 to 68 Characters

.se.net
.uy.com Name length restrictions: 3 to 68 Characters

.za.com Name length restrictions: 3 to 68 Characters



Last edited by sarettah at Jun 25 2003, 01:09 PM

[steves]

63 characters I believe.

[RichC]

Hooper,

I don't know about current versions of netscape, but older versions could not hit domains over 64 characters...
so even though you could registor longer ones... you were sort of shooting yourself in the foot.

[sarettah]

From:
http://www.register.com/domain-rules.cgi?1...663060843|


Domain Names have a variety of basic rules:
GENERAL EXTENSIONS

.COM, .NET and .ORG Domain Names

.COM - to be used for commercial and personal sites
.NET - recommended for companies involved in Internet infrastructure
.ORG - recommended for not-for-profit organizations
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-")
Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
Must have less than 63* characters, not including .COM, .NET and .ORG

* .com, .net and .org domain names exceeding a total of 26 characters are supported by most web browsers. However, certain web browsers, email programs and other Internet related applications may not support domain names over 26 characters.

.INFO Domain Names
.INFO - to be used for both commercial and personal sites
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-")
Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
Must have at least 3 characters and less than 63 characters, not including .INFO

.BIZ Domain Names
.BIZ - sites restricted to commercial and bona fide business purposes
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-")
Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
Cannot have two hyphens in a row
Must have at least 3 characters and less than 63 characters, not including .BIZ

.NAME Domain Names
.NAME - to be used for personal sites
Must be composed of a first and last name (yourname1.yourname2.name)
First name (yourname1 in above example) must have at least 1 character and no more than 63 characters
Second name (yourname2 in above example) must have at least 3 characters and no more than 63 characters
Use only letters, numbers or hyphen ("-")
Cannot begin or end with a hyphen

COUNTRY-SPECIFIC EXTENSIONS

.AC and .SH Domain Names

.SH - St. Helena, to be used for both commercial and personal sites
.AC - Ascension Island, to be used for both commercial and personal sites
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-")
Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
Must have at least 3 characters, but less than 23, not including .AC and .SH

.AS Domain Names
.AS - American Samoa, to be used for commercial and personal sites
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-")
Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
Must have at least 3 characters, but less than 23, not including .AS

.BE Domain Names
.BE - Belgium, to be used for commercial and personal sites
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-")
Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
Must have at least 2 characters, not including .BE
.CA Domain Names
.CA registrants must meet Canadian presence requirements as defined by CIRA (Canadian Internet Registration Authority)
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-")
Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
Length. Domain names must be not less than two (2) and not greater than fifty (50) characters long.
.CC Domain Names
.CC - Cocos (Keeling) Islands, to be used for commercial and personal sites
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-")
Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
Cannot contain all numbers
Must have at least 3 characters, but less than 47, not including .CC
.CO.IL and ORG.IL Domain Names
.CO.IL - Israel, to be used for commercial and personal sites
.ORG.IL - Israel, to be used for commercial and personal sites
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-")
Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
Must have as few as three and as many as 62 characters, not including .IL
No more than 10 domain names may be registered by any individual or organization.
.CO.UK and .ORG.UK Domain Names
.CO.UK - United Kingdom TLD used for both commercial and personal sites
.ORG.UK - United Kingdom TLD used for both commercial and personal sites
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-")
Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
Must have at least 3 characters, but less than 23, not including .CO.UK and .ORG.UK
.DE Domain Names
.DE - Germany, to be used for commercial and personal sites
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-")
Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
Must have at least 3 characters, but less than 64, not including .DE
.DK Domain Names
.DK - Denmark, to be used for commercial and personal sites
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-")
Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
Must have less than 23 characters, not including .DK
.FM Domain Names
.FM - Micronesia, to be used for commercial and personal sites
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-")
Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
Must have less than 23 characters, not including .FM
.JP Domain Names
.JP - Japan, to be used for commercial and personal sites
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-")
Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
Must have at least 3 characters, but less than 63, not including .jp
.KZ Domain Names
.KZ - Kazakstan, to be used for commercial and personal sites
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-")
Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
Must have less than 23 characters, not including .KZ
.LT Domain Names
.LT - Lithuania, to be used for commercial and personal sites
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-")
Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
Must have at least 3 characters, but less than 23, not including .LT
.MS, .VG, .TC, .GS and .TF Domain Names
.MS - Montserrat, to be used for both commercial and personal sites
.VG - British Virgin Islands, to be used for both commercial and personal sites
.TC - Turks and Caicos Islands, to be used for both commercial and personal sites
.GS - South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands, to be used for both commercial and personal sites
.TF - French Southern Territories, to be used for both commercial and personal sites
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-")
Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
Must have less than 23 characters, not including .MS, .VG, .TC, .GS and .TF
.NZ Domain Names
.CO.NZ - New Zealand, intended organizations pursuing commercial aims & purposes
.NET.NZ - New Zealand, intended organizations or services providers related to the NZ internet
.ORG.NZ - New Zealand, intended for non-profit organizations
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-")
Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
Must have less than 23 characters, not including .CO.NZ, .ORG.NZ, and .NET.NZ
.PH Domain Names
.PH and .COM.PH - Philippines, to be used for commercial and personal sites.
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-")
Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
Must have as few as three and as many as 62 characters, not including .com.ph or .ph
.RO Domain Names
.RO, .COM.RO - Romania, to be used for commercial and personal sites
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-")
Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
Must have less than 23 characters, not including .RO
.ST(SiTe) Domain Names
.ST(SiTe) - São Tomé and Principe, to be used for commercial and personal sites
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-")
Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
Must have as few as one and as many as 23 characters, not including .ST
.TO Domain Names
.TO - Tonga, to be used for commercial and personal sites
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-")
Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
Must have less than 23 characters, not including .TO
.TV Domain Names
.TV - Tuvalu, to be used for commercial and personal sites
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-")
Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
Must have less than 63 characters, not including .TV
.US Domain Names
.US - to be used by U.S. citizens and residents, U.S. corporations and other U.S. organizations and organizations with a presence within the United States
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-")
Domain names cannot begin or end with a hyphen
Domain names must be longer than 2 characters and cannot exceed 63 characters (this does not include the extension)
.WS Domain Names
.WS - WebSite, to be used for commercial and personal sites
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-")
Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
.WS domains registered through Register.com must have as few as four and as many as 63 characters, not including the .WS extension
.ZA Domain Names
.CO.ZA - South Africa, to be used for commercial and personal sites
Use only letters, numbers, or hyphen ("-")
Cannot begin or end with a hyphen
Must have less than 23 characters, not including .ZA

[Hooper]

These are all registrar imposed rules though. I'm wondering if there is an actual icann imposed length limit.

How fun would it be to own a 256 character domain name... oh the things you could do

[sarettah]

actually, the domain name itself is a max of 63 and the length of the string (including all seperators) is 256....

I am trying to find the sheet I used to have to get the proper authority on it...

meanwhile, this is a pretty good writeup...

http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/~jphb/comms/dns.html

DNS names are constructed hierarchichally. The highest level of the hierarchy being the last component or label of the DNS address. Labels can be up to 63 characters long and are case insensitive. A maximum length of 255 characters is allowed. Labels must start with a letter and can only consist of letters, digits and hyphens. Unfortunately some administrators construct names that start with digits. This is wrong and can easily cause problems with software that simply inspects the first character of a host address to determine whether a DNS name or an IP address has been quoted.

[sarettah]

From RFC 1034 (Domain Names — Concepts and Facilities — Implementation and Specification — Application and Support)

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1034.txt?number=1034

When a user needs to type a domain name, the length of each label is
omitted and the labels are separated by dots ("."). Since a complete
domain name ends with the root label, this leads to a printed form which
ends in a dot. We use this property to distinguish between:

- a character string which represents a complete domain name
(often called "absolute"). For example, "poneria.ISI.EDU."

- a character string that represents the starting labels of a
domain name which is incomplete, and should be completed by
local software using knowledge of the local domain (often
called "relative"). For example, "poneria" used in the
ISI.EDU domain.

*** So each part of the full name is a label...

www. label
domainname. label
com label

www.domainname.com complete domain name

from RFC 1035: Domain Names
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1035.txt?number=1035

2.3.4. Size limits

Various objects and parameters in the DNS have size limits. They are
listed below. Some could be easily changed, others are more
fundamental.

labels 63 octets or less

names 255 octets or less

TTL positive values of a signed 32 bit number.

UDP messages 512 octets or less

** so a domainname as we consider it can be 63 characters long with the entire address string being limited to 255....

I use subdomains sometimes just for fun... Don't know if I still have it on my server, but at one point I had stuff like....

girls.who.like.to.fuck.and.suck.at.partyafterdark. com and that is what is limited to 255

Hope this helps