Online& … and what? (Part 2 : Why isn’t our website address Online&.com ?)

The simple answer :  The ampersand cannot be used in an internet domain name, which is why you are viewing OnlineAnd.com, not Online&.com.

[This post will bore techies, but I have been asked this question several times and expect that it will be inter­esting to some of our clients.]

In a web page address — known technically as a URL (universal resource locator) — the ampersand is considered a ‘special character’.  In conjunction with the question mark, it is used to specify parameters that customize web pages.  For example :

Our complete list of clients is at :

But the same page displays a sub-list if a specific parameter is included :

In this case, sector=1 causes the page to display only clients in the Financial / Investment sector.

You might ask, then, why does our logo use the & instead of And.  I like the idea that a ‘special character’ that is so integral to our web devel­opment work is incor­porated into the logo.  It’s also a nod to my pre-internet appre­ciation of the ampersand, which I wrote about in a previous post, Part 1 : The Noble Ampersand.

Superfluous footnote :  Our site is also aliased as OnlineAmpersand.com to protect our brand — but that’s way too much of a mouthful to use routinely.