How does http://to./ work?

So I noticed this on Jeff's twitter. They don't have a tld, it seems?

How've they done this? Magic, bribery, or did a no-tld tld open up recently?

Phoshi

Posted 2009-12-03T18:19:00.623

Reputation: 22 001

http://.to, http://to and http://to. no longer work in 2013 as they apparently did in 2009. – isomorphismes – 2013-08-26T18:13:37.087

Same question just popped up over on ServerFault with multiple answers. :) http://serverfault.com/questions/90737/how-the-heck-is-http-to-a-valid-domain-name

– JMD – 2009-12-03T18:25:55.867

@JMD: Here I was thinking I was going mad from lack of coffee... I thought I'd just seen this question. – AnonJr – 2009-12-03T18:58:19.577

Answers

I believe that the way it works is simply who ever owns the TLD .to, simply set up an A record for the TLD itself and are providing this service.

For example, google.com and google.com. are actually the same address.

You can also access this site via http://to

Some domains use this technique to redirect you to where you can purchase domains from, this place seems to offer a free service.

William Hilsum

Posted 2009-12-03T18:19:00.623

Reputation: 111 572

The server seems to be down (but DNS still resolves). – Mechanical snail – 2012-08-16T05:57:38.673

better explanation? I do this all the time... I set up dns records for http://work which is a map, and then there is extras such as server.work server2.work etc....

– William Hilsum – 2009-12-03T18:39:27.790

It doesn't redirect here - http://www.tonic.to/ ... I think that this is actually whoever owns the .to domain names set this up based on the fact that to.com (in your example) is a different website

– William Hilsum – 2009-12-03T18:46:32.800

Just to ensure people don't miss JMD's comment:

Many more answers at Server Fault's How the heck is http://to./ a valid domain name?

Arjan

Posted 2009-12-03T18:19:00.623

Reputation: 29 084