What Is A Domain Name?
Many people think that the domain name, more commonly known as the domain, and a website is the same thing. Although the two terms are used interchangeably, there is a difference. A domain name is needed to create a website or an email account. When people type the domain in their browser, then the domain is called a web address to access the website.
How does it work?
A Domain name was created to make the Internet Protocol (IP) more understandable for the common people. An IP address is a unique set of numbers given to each computer on the internet. They help locate the computer and enable users to share data with one another. An easier way to understand is to consider IP Address as a local house address that identifies the house on the street and helps route the mail to the correct address.
The IP Addresses were hard to remember as they are a set of random numbers, so the domain name was created to make it easier to remember the IP Addresses via a name of the product or thing the IP Address represents. So, to communicate simply typing the domain name in the browser links the website to the user.But, as computers communicate via IP addresses, the domain name has to be converted to the IP address, this is done by the Domain Name System (DNS).
Types ofthe Domain Name:
A domain name is further categorized into various types namely
- The top-level domains (TLDs): such as the well-known domains for example .com, .info, .net, .edu, .org, and the country code domains (.pk).
After top-level domains in the DNS hierarchy are the
- Second-level and third-level domain names: they are typically open for reservation by users who want to connect to the LAN(local area networks). It helps creating the other publicly accessible networks.
Moreover, Domain names are also used as identification to indicate ownership of a resource or a website. Domain names provide easily recognizable names to numerically addressed Internet resources. This method allows any website to navigate from one physical location to another in the same network. This usually requires changing the IP address of a resource and the translation of this IP address to and from its domain name keeping the domain name intact for the user.
Furthermore, Domain names are used to create unique identities. Various Institutes and organisations choose a domain name that corresponds to their name, helping Internet users to reach them with ease.
One important thing regarding the characters which make up the domain name is that these characters are determined by the INTERNET CORPORATION FOR ASSIGNED NAMES AND NUMBERS (ICANN). This set of characters is based on ASCII, and it only allows a pre-determined number of characters i.e. a domain name cannot contain alphabets from every language of the world. For e.g. if a person registers a domain name of ká´“benhavn.org, it will be registered as kbnhavn.org.
With the advancement in the popularity of the World Wide Web, the number of registered domain names is increasing rapidly as more and more businesses go online to gain popularity.