| Introduced | 1995 |
|---|---|
| TLD type | Country code top-level domain |
| Status | Active |
| Registry | SamoaNIC (Computer Services Ltd. Samoa); marketed internationally by Global Domains International |
| Sponsor | Government of Samoa |
| Intended use | Entities connected with Samoa |
| Actual use | Gets a lot of use, mostly not in Samoa; marketed as "WebSite", "WorldSite" or "WebService" |
| Registration restrictions | None |
| Structure | Registrations are directly at second level |
| Documents | Policies |
| Dispute policies | UDRP |
| Web site | SamoaNIC |
.ws is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Samoa. It is administered by SamoaNIC, for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of Samoa. Global Domains International markets .ws registrations worldwide. It has been marketed — and achieved a degree of popularity — as an alternative to the more "crowded" generic top-level domains, where the selection of unregistered domain names is much more limited. In this context, .ws is suggested to stand for "web site", "world site" or "web service"; the original intent was to abbreviate "Western Samoa", the nation's official name when two-letter country codes were standardized in the 1970s. There are no geographic restrictions on registration of .ws domains. 2nd level domains: 3 TLDs for domain registration to the general public: .WS, .COM.WS and .NET.WS. WS also offers 3 restricted TLDs: .ORG.WS, .GOV.WS and .EDU.WS. One limitation of .ws is that existing domains registered in this TLD are not portable; they cannot be moved from one registrar to another. The use of wildcard DNS records to serve advertising on all unregistered and newly-registered .ws domains is also an issue.
External links
- IANA .ws whois information
- SamoaNIC.ws (for registrants in Samoa and some nearby countries)
