World’s Longest Domain Name.

Have you ever wondered what the world’s longest domain name was? Googling [def.] for it brings up many results two of which are web sites claiming to have the world’s longest domain name:

• www.llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyll-llantysiliogogogoch.com
• www.thelongestdomainnameintheworldandthensomeandthensomemoreandmore.com

With 69 characters and 72 characters respectively. To be fair the first actually only claims to be the world’s longest single word domain name.

But is that it? Can there be no more contenders to the tittle? Well RFC 1035 says that the maximum length of a domain name is 255 octets. This includes all the labels and their separators (www and dots) plus an ending separator (dot) that you don’t see, and a null terminator (which you also don’t see). So in effect you can have a domain name of up to 253 characters! [¹]

The world waits in nerdy anticipation for the day when we can surf to a domain name of 253 characters.

Thanks to M.E. for pointing me to this site, which got this ball rolling.