If I see a street sign that says The Close, I’d expect the road to be a cul-de-sac. If it’s called The Crescent, I’d expect it to be curved. The Boulevard may well have a central reservation. And the High Street will probably have shops. Not always but often.

It’s the same with domain names. A co.uk address suggests a UK business, while co.il is most likely to be based in Israel. There’s .gov for government, .edu for education and so on. We’ve chosen 51Degrees.mobi for our business because the suffix indicates a mobile-friendly site.

But the web has just been shaken up. No longer do you need to settle for a suffix chosen by ICANN, the overlords of the internet. (Not even those odd ones like .coop, .museum and .aero). Instead, you can make up your own domain.