RFC 2606 · Section 2
Reserved for documentation
This domain is held open by international consensus. It exists in a permanent state of “not yet”—a space the Internet agreed never to fill.
No logo. No product.
A grey field and a rule.
The absence of brand is the brand. There are no cookies, no trackers, no analytics. The page loads in under a kilobyte. This is the Internet’s quietest page—and it has been for decades.
<h1>Example Domain</h1>
<p>This domain is for use in
documentation examples.</p>
<a href="https://iana.org/...">
Learn more
</a>The word itself becomes the first specimen. Rendered in oversized monospace, it is simultaneously content, code, and critique—a word that describes itself while refusing to mean anything else.
Permitted uses:
Tutorials · Tests · Demos · Teaching
Tutorials and instructional materials that need a plausible but non-functional domain
Software testing environments requiring DNS resolution without real-world impact
Demonstrations of protocols, configurations, and network topologies in textbooks
Teaching materials that reference domain names without implying ownership
The one hard rule: Avoid use in operations. Do not use this domain for production services, email routing, certificate issuance, or any system where failure has consequences.
RFC 6761 · Section 6.3
“...should not appear in any DNS zone file...”
RFC 2606 · RFC 6761
IANA Reserved Domains