Just three letters and a punctuation mark, found today at the end of so many web sites and emails, such as microsoft.com, yahoo.com and google.com. The ‘dotcom’ era that we are told we now live in is derived from the most popular ‘top level domain’ (TLD) online, which has recently celebrated its 25th birthday.

The first .com domain was symbolics.com, registered March 15, 1985. Today, there are over 80 million of them. .com was also one of several added around the same time, it was joined by a handful of others, including .edu, .net and .arpa – but it is .com, prevalent in so many companies’ email and web addresses, that rules the roost.

The Internet is, of course, still growing. Recent additions include .coop (used to great effect by the chain of community shops), .aero, .travel, .name and .info, and campaigners continue to encourage further additions, ensuring the next 25 years will continue to see a diverse collection of domains registered online.