Will there be conflicts between domain names and websites? When will domain name conflicts be resolved?

If you want to learn more about domain names, many people don't know how to resolve them. Below, we'll explain how domain name and website conflicts can occur and how to mitigate them.

Historical records show that name conflicts sometimes occur when TLDs are added to the DNS. Records also show that domain names in private namespaces have been leaked over the years, in some cases with significant frequency. History shows that private network namespaces and name resolution are never as completely independent as administrators might imagine. Queries for names that administrators intended to be resolved by internal name servers were sometimes sent to resolvers in the global DNS.

Network administrators sometimes choose domain names based on the assumption that the list of domain names in the global DNS root directory is immutable. However, in reality, this list can change over time. For example, about 25 years ago, after Czechoslovakia joined the CS TLD, many universities used to allow users to enter domain names ending in CS to query the search list for their computer science department. These universities used the university's domain name for fully qualified domain names. However, because these domain names ending in CS were FQDNs, these decisions led to uncertainty in name resolution when new TLDs were added to the root zone in the global DNS. Even though the global DNS root often overlaps with domains in private namespaces (private TLDs or search lists), network administrators often forget to update the domains in the global DNS root.

IT departments are advised to initiate mitigation efforts as soon as possible. While taking a better approach to firewalls can reduce some conflicts, it's impossible to prevent them all. Similarly, while ensuring users are comfortable using our name servers or allowing remote workers to use VPNs might reduce some conflicts, it can also make other conflicts more difficult to identify.

Name collisions can occur regardless of the characters used in domain names; however, using non-ASCII characters in private TLDs complicates conflict analysis. Resolvers may issue queries for these names in unpredictable ways that may not conform to Internet standards, making it more difficult to determine when a name collision has occurred.

While the global DNS root eventually expands over time, domains are typically added to the root. Each new TLD can potentially conflict with domains in private namespaces that have accidentally leaked to the internet. Organizations continue to use domain names for years and bear the risk of name collisions.