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What do we know from the URL?

What does the URL (Web address) say about the producer of the web site, and its purpose? Look at the final syllable in the domain name. The first three sites below are all "White House" sites. Which is the official White House site? How can you tell? Note that all three sites are easily accessible in a web search for "White House".

.gov	Government agency: www.whitehouse.gov
.net	Internet Service Provider: www.whitehouse.net
.com	Commercial site
.edu	Higher education - http://www.uiuc.edu/index.html. Other educational sites may appear with different domain names: www.whitehouse.gov/kids
.mil	Military site- www.navy.mil/
%7E	("tilde") Personal site - www.ddc.com/~kjohnson/birdcare.htm
.org	Organization; may be charitable, religious, or a lobbying group - http://www.redcross.org/

• Country names appear as a two-letter abbreviation in the domain name. For a complete list, go to Domain Name Registries around the World.
  

• New domain names include .museum, .info and .biz, among others. Read more about them at InterNic FAQ on Domain Names.