Why Top-Level-Domains are Important

A small ad by the Bhutan Education City Board in the Kuensel caught my eye. Or rather, the website that was mentioned in the ad is what caught my eye.

Since Education City is a Bhutanese project, one would expect the top-level-domain for the website to be .bt. However, the website, www.becboard.co.nr, has a top-level domain of .nr, which belongs to a tiny island in the South Pacific: The Republic of Nauru, one of the world's smallest independent republics.

In case you are wondering: no, there are no plans to establish an Education City in Nauru (area: 20 sq km; population: 10,000). The reason BEC chose to use the domain is probably cost: .co.nr domains are free. The website itself is hosted by another free service, 5gbfree.com.

While cost-cutting is a commendable goal, organizations should pay attention to the top-level domain (TLD). Using a domain listed in a different country sends a confusing message, both to humans and search engines such as Google. In the case of BEC, one would expect their site to be using a domain such as bec.bt, becboard.bt, bec.edu.bt or even becboard.org.

Nauru islanders catching fish