The .it top level domain (TLD) is the Internet country code TLD for Italy. According to IANA, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, this TLD was delegated in1987. It is managed by the Istituto di Informatica e Telematica del CNR (Italian National Research Council’s Institute of Informatics and Telematics).
The .it TLD is generally available to any entities or individuals who are established in countries belonging to the European Economic Area (EEA), or who are citizens of such countries. These include all the countries of the European Union, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
There has been a significant rise in the use of the .it TLD in recent times especially as it is popular with a wide array of entities including, businesses, artists, and social communities due to its ability to double up as a domain hack, for words ending in ‘it’.
For example, Reddit, a social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website, uses redd.it as a shortened alternate domain name. Another example is the Italian edition of the Huffington Post, which uses the domain huffingtonpost.it, and Twitter’s short url t.co which was originally twttr.it.
Register.it which is the leading company operating in the domain registration, hosting, e-commerce solutions and e-marketing activities, and part of Team.blue, Italy’s fastest-approved Accredited Registrar for .it domain names, provides a source which states that as of 2020, there are over 3 million registered .it domains.
According to a report by Registro .it, the registry maintaining the .it TLD, in 2020 they recorded over 300,000 new .it domain registrations. This is a significant increase compared to the approximately 130,000 new .it domain registrations reported in 2019.
It’s also worth noting that the .it TLD is increasingly becoming a choice for the tech industry. Many technology and IT focused companies have adopted .it domain names, for instance, ITConsult.it, a software company based in Italy and outpost.it, a digital marketing agency.
In conclusion, .it is a top-level domain that is primarily designed for use by entities connected with Italy but it is also appealing to a range of businesses, organizations, and individuals globally for its versatile and clever applications, and for its availability to those in the EEA region.
Sources: https://www.nic.it/en, https://www.iana.org/root-whois/it.htm, http://www.domainsbot.com/domain-hacks/, https://www.register.it/Domain/, https://www.registro.it/en/register-domains/rules.html, https://www.hostingadvice.com/how-to/choose-domain-name/#7-use-an-appropriate-domain-name-extension
