Is [e-mail] allowable?

Wondering if this type of domain protocol is possible.

[JustTrying]

Recently I heard that you could register a domain with the @ sign included without it being an e-mail (such as [e-mail]). I have two questions about this:

First, is this even possible?

Second, if this is possible, would a SE spider a domain that contained this symbol?

Thanks for the tech info! Jason

[oilman]

you can't register a domain name with funky characters in it. The only chars allowed are letters, numbers and dashes. You can use something@ in your addressing if you like. Most part it's kinda like adding '?something' to the end of your url. It's just ignored but can be used for tracking purposes.

[Lisa]

That is not possible :)

This is what is possible:
[a-z0-9]+[a-z0-9-]*.gTLD

[mbauser2]

Clarifying oilman's post a bit, @ in an http URL does mean something, it's just that nobody uses it the way it's meant.

According to RFC 1738 (and its relatives), URLs that "involve the direct use of an IP-based protocol to a specified host on the Internet" use the same basic syntax:

//<user>:<password>@<host>:<port>/<url-path>

with user, password, and port optional, so [[e-mail]...] is supposed to mean that someone with the login ID "sample" is trying to login into domain.com. (If domain.com actually does require authentication, it should ask for sample's password.)

Of course, nobody uses it that way, so it's mostly just a way to show off. (If you own your own domain, tell your friends to just type your e-mail address into the browser's address bar.) It's a parlor trick, nothing more.

This "trick" is also used in email spam a lot, where crooks will use URLs like

[[e-mail]...]

(where the part after @ is actually encoded, or so long it rolls off the screen) to make people think they're clicking on Microsoft's link when they're really going to example.com. That's a dirty trick, nothing more.

[EliteWeb]

There was only one site I ever saw advertised with the @ charector and it was a COMmercial security firm @Stake but their company name has the @ in it too ;)

[Shane]

Neat trick mbauser2, that explains all those redirects .....

Really, thanks for explaining. It is just a parlor trick.

..... Shane

[JustTrying]

Thank you mbauser2, that was a very clear and helpful answer. I really appreciate it!

Jason