.at is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Austria. It is administered by nic.at.

.at
Introduced20 January 1988
TLD typeCountry code top-level domain
StatusActive
Registrynic.at
Sponsornic.at
Intended useEntities connected with Austria
Actual useVery popular in Austria, also used for English-language domain hacks
Registered domains1,468,838 (December 2022)[1]
Registration restrictionsNone, except for restricted subdomains .gv.at and .ac.at
StructureRegistrations are directly at second level, or at third level beneath several second-level labels
DocumentsTerms and conditions (English)
Dispute policiesnone since October 2008[2]
DNSSECyes
Registry websitewww.nic.at

Second-level domains

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The .at top-level domain has a number of second-level domains:

  • .ac.at (reserved for academic institutions, especially universities)
  • .gv.at (reserved for the government as well as federal and state authorities)
  • .co.at (intended for commercially-oriented companies)
  • .or.at (intended for all kinds of organizations)
  • .priv.at (intended for private Austrian individuals)

However, it is also possible to register directly at the top level. Given the number of English words that end with -at, this presents the possibility for many domain hacks.

Known domain hacks

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Many Austrian domain names were registered for English words that end with "at". Domain hacks treating "at" as a word in its own right (such as arrive.at) are widespread. As of today, there are very few such domain names left available on the domain prime market as the result of domain name speculation. Most of them can be bought on the domain secondary market. Only a few of these domain names are actually used. Some known examples of the Austrian domain hacks are:

Properties

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An .at-Domain can be between one and 63 characters long. Registrations of internationalized domain names are accepted.[3] In 2007, it was made possible to register domain names containing only numbers. The .at-Domain started using DNSSEC in 2011 in order to guarantee the authenticity and integrity of the Domain Name System's data.

Before August 2016, it was only possible to register .at-Domains with three or more (two for co.at, ac.at, gv.at, or.at) characters.[4]

References

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  1. ^ ".at Statistiken". nic.at. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  2. ^ "Legal issues". Archived from the original on 2011-08-17. Retrieved 2011-08-08.
  3. ^ "Charset & Converter". Archived from the original on 2006-05-10. Retrieved 2011-08-08.
  4. ^ "nic.at: Introduction of short domains". Archived from the original on 2016-07-16. Retrieved 2016-05-10.
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