The name example is reserved by the
Internet Engineering Task Force
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a standards organization for the Internet and is responsible for the technical standards that make up the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP). It has no formal membership roster or requirements and ...
(IETF) as a domain name that may not be installed as a
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 ...
in the
Domain Name System
The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned ...
(DNS) of 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 ...
.
Reserved DNS names
By publication of RFC 2606 in 1999, the
Internet Engineering Task Force
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a standards organization for the Internet and is responsible for the technical standards that make up the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP). It has no formal membership roster or requirements and ...
reserved the DNS labels ''example'',
''invalid'',
''localhost'', and
''test'' so that they may not be installed into the
root zone of the Domain Name System.
The reason for reservation of these top-level domain names is to reduce the likelihood of conflict and confusion.
This allows the use of these names for either documentation purposes or in local testing scenarios.
Purpose
The top-level domain is explicitly intended to be used in documentation or other technical writing, when domain names are presented as examples in usage or presentation of concepts of the Domain Name System or the Internet.
See also
*
example.com
*
192.0.2.0/24, 198.51.100.0/24, 203.0.113.0/24 –
IPv4
Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) is the fourth version of the Internet Protocol (IP). It is one of the core protocols of standards-based internetworking methods in the Internet and other packet-switched networks. IPv4 was the first version ...
ranges reserved for documentation and example code by RFC 5737
*
2001:db8::/32 –
IPv6
Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the most recent version of the Internet Protocol (IP), the communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic across the Internet. IP ...
range reserved for documentation by RFC 3849
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:EXAMPLE
Top-level domains
Placeholder names
Computer-related introductions in 1999
ja:トップレベルドメイン#特殊用途