Page 27 - GIGW2

Guidelines

for Indian Government Apps & Websites

2.2.1 Hence, in compliance to the Government’s Domain Name Policy, all Indian
Government websites MUST use ‘gov.in’ or ‘nic.in’ domain exclusively allotted
and restricted to Government websites. The military institutions and organisations
in India may also use ‘mil.in’ domain in place of or in addition to the gov.in/.nic.
in domain. Educational Institutions, and Research and Academic Institutions,
which are otherwise eligible for registration under ‘gov.in’ may use ‘edu.in’,
‘res.in’ or ‘ac.in’ domains. The above naming policy applies to all Government
websites irrespective of where they are hosted.

2.2.2 Those Departments and Government entities that are using and have
been publicising a domain name other than the above should take
appropriate early action to register official government domain names.

2.2.3 The Domain Name Conventions, as specified at
registry.gov.in/domiannamingcon.php should be followed while registering a
‘gov.in’ Domain Name. A summary of the domain name conventions is given
below:

Domain Naming Conventions:
• Domains can contain the English-language letters ‘a’ through ‘z’, and the
digits 0 through 9.

• Departments can also use hyphens, but hyphens cannot begin or end a
domain name. Also, two hyphens together are usually not permitted, and
hyphens cannot appear in both the third and fourth positions.
• Spaces and special characters (such as !, $, &, _ and so on) are not
permitted.
• The minimum length is 3 characters, and the maximum length is 63
characters (excluding extension “. gov.in”).

• Domain names are not case-sensitive. (i.e. you may use a mix of upper or
lower case letters).
Restrictions on the composition of domain names under .IN:

• Generic names are not allowed (e.g. shipping.gov.in is not allowed).

• For domains under gov.in, the domain must be derived from the name
of the organisation name/entity. (e.g. Central Vigilance Commission can
opt for a domain cvc.gov.in but NOT xyz.gov.in or vigilance.gov.in).

• One and Two letter domain names are not allowed for registration (e.g.
ab.gov.in).

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