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How does hxxp://to./ work?

I'm pretty confused because this URL shortener doesn't have a domain suffix. How does this work?

http://to./

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I've wondered that too. Will be interested to find out the answer. Great question. – Nick G Mar 28 '10 at 19:05
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Duplicate of my own question, short answer is that the tld (domain suffix) is to, the site was set up on the tld itself, which is perfectly possible, just not often done. It also doesn't need the trailing dot! – Phoshi Mar 28 '10 at 19:09
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The dot on the end ensures that the to is treated as a fully qualified domain name (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fully_qualified_domain_name) as opposed to a hostname on your local network. – coneslayer Mar 28 '10 at 19:49
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closed as exact duplicate by Phoshi, John T, heavyd, Mehper C. Palavuzlar, sblair Mar 28 '10 at 19:59

This question covers exactly the same ground as earlier questions on this topic; its answers may be merged with another identical question. See the FAQ for guidance on how to improve it.

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The dot on the end means the root domain. Domains such as www.example.com are represented in DNS as www.example.com.. to is a country level domain for Tonga, a small island country, such as .us for the United States or .ie for Ireland. The registrar has pointed the root domain for that country to a URL shortener.

The reason the . is necessary is because most programs will assume you mean to.com if you just typed in http://to/ .

It would be equally possible from a technical standpoint for a shortener to use http://us./ or http://ie./ but the TLD registrar for those is very unlikely to allow it.

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http://to (without the dot) works for me in IE. Firefox apparently needs an extra / at the end to not consult Google, though. – Joey Mar 28 '10 at 20:15
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