IANA’s email about why example.com changed

IANA 关于 example.com 内容变更的邮件说明

I emailed IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) earlier today to ask about the new content on example.com. To my surprise, their VP replied. Here is the email: 今天早些时候，我致信 IANA（互联网数字分配机构），询问关于 example.com 网站新内容的情况。令我惊讶的是，他们的副总裁回复了我。邮件内容如下：

I am happy to try and answer any questions you have. The changes we make to the site from time-to-time are usually informed by a desire to either reduce the overall bandwidth demands of serving the site, or improve its utility. 我很乐意尝试回答您的问题。我们不时对该网站进行的更改，通常是出于减少网站服务的整体带宽需求，或是为了提高其效用的考虑。

At its heart it is a placeholder for a site no-one should be accessing, but we have historically showed a message there to inform visitors about why the domain is registered and how they may use it. 从本质上讲，它是一个不应被任何人访问的占位符网站，但我们历来会在页面上显示一条信息，告知访问者该域名注册的原因以及如何使用它。

As it tends to be heavily trafficked, the overall bandwidth is a key consideration, and to that end one of the changes we made this week was to split the page content into a more basic page, augmented by a separate Javascript file with additional content beyond that. 由于该网站流量巨大，整体带宽是一个关键考量因素。为此，我们本周所做的更改之一是将页面内容拆分为一个更基础的页面，并辅以一个包含额外内容的独立 JavaScript 文件。

Since most of the traffic to the site is automated it tends not to fetch the Javascript file, reducing overall data requirements. 由于访问该网站的大部分流量是自动化的，它们通常不会去获取那个 JavaScript 文件，从而降低了整体的数据需求。

The fundamental purpose of the domain is for use in documentation, such as illustrative examples you may find in instructions. We know that people may, for example, cut-and-paste a sample configuration file and forget to customize entries that contain an example domain, and we expect we get some incidental traffic from that. 该域名的根本目的是用于文档，例如您在说明书中可能看到的示例。我们知道，人们可能会在剪切和粘贴示例配置文件时，忘记自定义其中包含示例域名的条目，我们预计由此会产生一些附带流量。

However, the domain isn’t intended to be a general purpose endpoint for things like availability testing so we do not encourage that kind of usage. There is no requirement there is a HTTP service present on the host in order to fulfill its purpose, we just operate it as a courtesy. 然而，该域名并非旨在作为可用性测试等用途的通用端点，因此我们不鼓励此类使用。为了实现其目的，该主机并不要求必须提供 HTTP 服务，我们运营它仅仅是出于提供便利。

Hope this is helpful. Let us know if you have any questions. You’re free to use and recirculate this information as you see fit. 希望这些信息对您有所帮助。如有任何疑问，请随时告知。您可以根据需要自由使用和转发此信息。

Kim Davies Internet Assigned Numbers Authority 30 Sep 2026 Kim Davies 互联网数字分配机构 2026 年 9 月 30 日