Writing for Business - A Whatis.com Blog » dot.com or dot-com http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/writing-for-business Is your grammar as good as your code? Thu, 13 Jun 2013 17:09:47 +0000 en-US hourly 1 How do you spell out .com? http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/writing-for-business/how-do-you-spell-out-com/ http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/writing-for-business/how-do-you-spell-out-com/#comments Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:58:22 +0000 Ivy Wigmore http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/writing-for-business/how-do-you-spell-out-com/ Which is correct?
Both the _______ domain and Site Director Margaret Rouse celebrate their birthday March 15.
a. dotcom
b. dot.com
c. dot-com

Answer: c, if you follow AP style.

Explanation:
Although you’ll see all three spellings online, if you want to be AP compliant, choose “dot-com.” The story is that they preferred that style over “dot.com” to prevent people from reading as “dot dot com.”

Hmmm… I just discovered another good reason not to use “dot.com.” Apparently some applications will consider it a URL all by itself and make it a link to nowhere. So, yeah, don’t bother clicking on that.

Alex J. Newman provides an AP style cheatsheet and glossary for Internet-related terms.

The SEO blog celebrates with a collection of dot-com trivia.

Follow us on Twitter @tao_of_grammar

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