January 7, 2014
Domain names ending in ".nf" aren't all that plentiful, so you may not have seen one before in your online forays.
The .NF extension is the county code top level domain (ccTLD) for Norfolk Island.
Norfolk Island covers an area of just 35km2 and is located in the Pacific Ocean located between Australia (1,412 kilometres east of Evans Head), New Zealand and New Caledonia.
While a part of the Commonwealth of Australia, its estimated 2,300 inhabitants have a high degree of self-governance. Largely self sufficient in terms of staple foods, on its 80 kilometres of roads (where the maximum speed limit is 50km/hr), cows have right of way.
Norfolk Island Internet Registry oversees the administration of the extension, which has been in existence since 1996.
According to the latest annual report on .NF, there were 1,417 domains in the Norfolk Island registry at the end of 2012; a decrease of 38 domains over the 2013 calendar year. During 2013, there were 123 deletions and 85 new .NF registrations. CoCCA says total .NF registry revenue for 2013 was AUD $170,128 (AUD $14,177 per month).
While a tiny registry in comparison to .AU, the .NF registry has kept up with the times. It is fully IPv6 compliant (DNS, EPP, and WHOIS over IPv4 and IPv6) and offers full support for DNSSEC. The DS record for .NF was added to the internet's root zone early in 2013.
Unlike the .AU registry, there are no restrictions on registering a .NF domain name at the second level. However, given the lack of awareness among consumers of the extension and the costs of registering; most .NF names registered are for sites directly related to Norfolk Island - and the extension was originally conceived for this purpose.
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AUSTRALIAN OWNED AND OPERATED SINCE 1996
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