
Ask HN: Have you ever visited example.com? - glaberficken
Sorry if this seems a bit pointless, but for the first time just now I visited https:&#x2F;&#x2F;example.com&#x2F;<p>Expected to find the typical &quot;spammy&quot; parked domain page, but instead learned this:
http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.iana.org&#x2F;domains&#x2F;reserved<p>Had no clue about reserved domain names before today! You?
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guessmyname
Also note that example.com has no MX records [1]:

    
    
        When an address such as username@example.com is used to demonstrate
        the sign-up process on a website, it directs the user to enter an
        actual email address at which they receive mail. Example.com is used
        in a generic and vendor-neutral manner.
    

The list of reserved TLDs is quite short actually [2] but thanks to this page
I understood that ".dev" is a bad TLD that people enjoy(ed?) using for their
test/local websites [3]. I have been using ".test" for all my offline projects
for a couple of years now, and ".local" was specifically very helpful when I
had to build a fake DNS server for a DNS manager that I was maintaining.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example.com](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Example.com)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-
level_domain#Reserved_doma...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-
level_domain#Reserved_domains)

[3] [https://iyware.com/dont-use-dev-for-
development/](https://iyware.com/dont-use-dev-for-development/)

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ytjohn
I always use the example.net/example.com domains for my documentation. It
drives me crazy when I see a tutorial using something they just made up like
"myfakewebsite.com". Almost always, these lead to an actually registered
domain like what OP was expecting to encounter.

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SamReidHughes
I use it as a non-HTTPS site that I can use to log in to Starbucks Wifi.

~~~
bbcbasic
I use warriorforum.com for that

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frantzmiccoli
Some domains are not to be sold, to avoid domain squatting and the kind of
spammy websites you were expecting.

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danso
Yes, I use it as an example URL for tutorials or for testing out any HTTP-
request-making code.

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atsaloli
Sure. Example.com is an Internet standard. See [http://www.rfc-
editor.org/rfc/rfc2606.txt](http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2606.txt)

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27182818284
Yes, it is used a fair amount by web developers. Often I notice more junior
developers making up their own things, but that leads to situations where your
debug/private messages can be sent to a real person. I'll see things like
null@null.com or something@nothing.com, which is bad.

I believe the owner of null.com gets tons of emails from buggy OnStar notices
to mom+pop websites.

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zerognowl
Special Use for now, but this could change at the whim of standards bodies,
and could become an ordinary domain. It certainly would be interesting to own
such a domain and see what kind of emails you'd be getting.

