Why is it .com and what does it stand for?

.com stands for “commercial”
.edu is “education”
.net is generally for personal stuff.

Although it should be noted that the line gets blurred quite a bit, since there’s nothing stopping a company from getting a .net address, or any old Joe Schmoe getting a .com address.

At the beginning of the WWW there were some decisions made as to extensions. Com is commercial, Org is for a non-profit, Gov is for government, Edu is for schools, etc.

Commercial as opposed to ”.gov” which is goverment, ”.org” which is organization or ”.edu” which is an educational site or institution.

They’re called internet domain suffixes. Here’s a more complete list as defined by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers).

There’s new domain suffixes being developed all the time.

Yes, and other countries have different domain suffixes.

.net was originally reserved for network service providers.

there has been a suggestion that all porn sites be moved to a .xxx address. I like that idea. A few times I have tried to find a website, and stumbled into some horrible stuff.