vanity domain


vanity domain

(networking)A domain you register for the sole purpose ofhaving your own domain so you can have an easily rememberedURL and e-mail address. The domain is usually served(often vhosted) off someone else's machines.

This is as opposed to a domain you register because you havemachines of your own which are already on the Internet andwhich you want to make addressable via something other thandot addresses.

Whereas vanity domains were almost unheard-of in 1980s, sincethe invention and popularisation of the Web in the mid-1990sand the desire for URLs which consist only of memorabledomain names (e.g., "http://pbs.org") for everything frommovies to car wax, vanity domains have come to be the ruleinstead of the exception.