.al is the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...

country code Country codes are short alphabetic or numeric geographical codes ( geocodes) developed to represent countries and dependent areas, for use in data processing and communications. Several different systems have been developed to do this. The term ...

top-level domain A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in ...

(

ccTLD A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country, sovereign state, or dependent territory identified with a country code. All ASCII ccTLD identifiers are two letters long, and all t ...

) for

Albania Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...

. It is administered by the Electronic and Postal Communications Authority of Albania (AKEP). AKEP recommends that .al domain registrations be performed with one of the AKEP accredited registrars. There are also international registrars that resell .al domains. Domain names should be between 2 and 63 characters. Although the

Albanian language Albanian (endonym: or ) is an Indo-European language and an independent branch of that family of languages. It is spoken by the Albanians in the Balkans and by the Albanian diaspora, which is generally concentrated in the Americas, Euro ...

has a number of special characters, the registry has not enabled the use of IDN characters.

2nd level registrations

In the past, registrations were not permitted directly at the second level, but a few existing names were "grandfathered"; they were uniti.al, tirana.al, soros.al, upt.al and inima.al. In 2012 registrars started to resell .al domain names widely making them popular outside

domain hack A domain hack is a domain name that suggests a word, phrase, or name when concatenating two or more adjacent levels of that domain. For example, and , using the fictitious country-code domains ''.ds'' and ''.le'', suggest the words ''birds'' an ...

s. In November 2014 the registry released two character domain names allowing for free landrush.

3rd level registrations

Registrations used to be only beneath the second-levels, i.e., .com.al, .net.al, .org.al, and .edu.al labeled appropriately for the type of organisation, but many now exist directly below .al.

Whois servers

As of November 1st, 2019, the Autoriteti i Komunikimeve Elektronike dhe Postare (AKEP) has mandated that all AKEP accredited registrars begin verifying and updating the WHOIS contact information for all new domain registrations and Registrant contact modifications.

Domain figures

The table below lists the total registration figures as of December 2017.

List of authorized hosts

References

External links

IANA .al whois information

AKEP
Electronic and Postal Communications Authority (AKEP)
Host.al
Accredited Registrar (Host.al)
WebHost.al
Accredited Registrar (WebHost.al)
IRegister
Accredited Registrar (IRegister) Country code top-level domains Telecommunications in Albania Computer-related introductions in 1992 Council of European National Top Level Domain Registries members {{compu-domain-stub sv:Toppdomän#A