[ELI5] Why do some countries use second-level domain country codes (.co.uk or .co.za) and others do not?
In: Technology
Typo: It’s not really the countries that use the SLDs.
Real answer? Be because each country can decided to use and divide their top level domain code however they want.
Originally, there were only 7 top level domain suffixes – .com, .edu, .org, .net, .gov, .mil, and .int
After the forecasted success and exponential growth of the internet, the TLDs were expanded to include the ISO two letter country code for every country, and delegated ownership to those countries (or some appointed representative organization for that country).
So, really, .co.uk exists because that’s what the UK wanted to use, and .ba.ca exists because that’s how Canada wanted to use their TLD.
TLDR: The DNS is a total mess where none of the established rules really matter.
Back in the days when DNS was brand new some nations decided that it would be a good idea to use second-level domains to have their own versions of .com, .net, and .org
.co.uk is supposed to mean a commercial business in the UK
While other countries like Canada adopted second level domains to refer the provinces
.nb.ca New Brunswick . Canada
This implementation was up to the various nations, and since it was a new technology they just kinda ran with it.
However in the real world people soon abandoned these standards because they weren’t enforced. Web developers and companies used different top-level domains as marketing gimmicks instead of what they actually stood for.
Canada for instance rarely uses the provincial domains anymore. While companies are using Domains belonging to the island chain of Tuvalu .tv and claiming it means television when it doesn’t.
While other companies bought up every of .org, .net, and .com domains that were even remotely close to their company name just to prevent other companies from using them.
Knowing this kind of thing drives my OCD mad.
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