Generic domain names
Within a particular top-level domain, people are generally free to select an unallocated domain name as their own on a first come, first served basis, which usually results in, all the good ones are taken. For generic or commonly used names, this may sometimes lead to the use of a domain name which is inaccurate or misleading. This problem can be seen with regard to the ownership or control of domain names for a generic product or service.
As an example, there has been tremendous growth in the number and size of literary festivals around the world in recent years. Using this example, currently a generic domain name such as literary.org is available to the first literary festival organization which is able to obtain registration, even if the festival in question is very young or obscure. Some critics would argue that there is greater amenity in reserving such domain names for the use of, for example, a regional or umbrella grouping of festivals. Related issues may also arise in relation to non-commercial domain names.
Unconventional domain names
Due to the rarity of one-word dot-com domain names, many unconventional domain names, called domain hacks, have been gaining popularity. They make use of the top-level domain as an integral part of the website's title. Two popular domain hack websites are del.icio.us and blo.gs, which spell out "delicious" and "blogs", respectively.
Unconventional domain names are also used to create unconventional email addresses. Non-working examples that spell 'James' are j@m.es and j@mes.com, which use the domain names m.es (of Spain's .es) and mes.com, respectively.
Premium domain names
Premium domain names are often valuable, and have particular characterizations: The names are short and memorable, may contain words that are regularly searched on search engines or keywords that help the name gain a higher ranking on search engines. They may contain generic words, so the word has more than one meaning, and they may contain common typos.