What is domain name a word

This article is about domain names in the Internet. For other uses, see Domain (disambiguation).

In the Internet, a domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. As of 2017, 330.6 million domain names had been registered.^[1] Domain names are used in various networking contexts and for application-specific naming and addressing purposes. In general, a domain name identifies a network domain or an Internet Protocol (IP) resource, such as a personal computer used to access the Internet, or a server computer.

Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System (DNS). Any name registered in the DNS is a domain name. Domain names are organized in subordinate levels (subdomains) of the DNS root domain, which is nameless. The first-level set of domain names are the top-level domains (TLDs), including the generic top-level domains (gTLDs), such as the prominent domains com, info, net, edu, and org, and the country code top-level domains (ccTLDs). Below these top-level domains in the DNS hierarchy are the second-level and third-level domain names that are typically open for reservation by end-users who wish to connect local area networks to the Internet, create other publicly accessible Internet resources or run web sites.

The registration of a second- or third-level domain name is usually administered by a domain name registrar who sell its services to the public.

A fully qualified domain name (FQDN) is a domain name that is completely specified with all labels in the hierarchy of the DNS, having no parts omitted. Traditionally a FQDN ends in a dot (.) to denote the top of the DNS tree.^[2] Labels in the Domain Name System are case-insensitive, and may therefore be written in any desired capitalization method, but most commonly domain names are written in lowercase in technical contexts.^[3]

Purpose

Domain names serve to identify Internet resources, such as computers, networks, and services, with a text-based label that is easier to memorize than the numerical addresses used in the Internet protocols. A domain name may represent entire collections of such resources or individual instances. Individual Internet host computers use domain names as host identifiers, also called hostnames. The term hostname is also used for the leaf labels in the domain name system, usually without further subordinate domain name space. Hostnames appear as a component in Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) for Internet resources such as websites (e.g., en.wikipedia.org).

Domain names are also used as simple identification labels to indicate ownership or control of a resource. Such examples are the realm identifiers used in the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), the Domain Keys used to verify DNS domains in e-mail systems, and in many other Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs).

An important function of domain names is to provide easily recognizable and memorizable names to numerically addressed Internet resources. This abstraction allows any resource to be moved to a different physical location in the address topology of the network, globally or locally in an intranet. Such a move usually requires changing the IP address of a resource and the corresponding translation of this IP address to and from its domain name.

Domain names are used to establish a unique identity. Organizations can choose a domain name that corresponds to their name, helping Internet users to reach them easily.

A generic domain is a name that defines a general category, rather than a specific or personal instance, for example, the name of an industry, rather than a company name. Some examples of generic names are books.com, music.com, and travel.info. Companies have created brands based on generic names, and such generic domain names may be valuable.^[4]

Domain names are often simply referred to as domains and domain name registrants are frequently referred to as domain owners, although domain name registration with a registrar does not confer any legal ownership of the domain name, only an exclusive right of use for a particular duration of time. The use of domain names in commerce may subject them to trademark law.

History

The practice of using a simple memorable abstraction of a host’s numerical address on a computer network dates back to the ARPANET era, before the advent of today’s commercial Internet. In the early network, each computer on the network retrieved the hosts file (host.txt) from a computer at SRI (now SRI International),^[5][6] which mapped computer hostnames to numerical addresses. The rapid growth of the network made it impossible to maintain a centrally organized hostname registry and in 1983 the Domain Name System was introduced on the ARPANET and published by the Internet Engineering Task Force as RFC 882 and RFC 883.

The following table shows the first five .com domains with the dates of their registration:^[7]

Domain name	Registration date
symbolics.com	15/03/1985
bbn.com	24/04/1985
think.com	24/05/1985
mcc.com	11/07/1985
dec.com	30/09/1985

and the first five .edu domains:^[8]

Domain name	Registration date
berkeley.edu	24/04/1985
cmu.edu	24/04/1985
purdue.edu	24/04/1985
rice.edu	24/04/1985
ucla.edu	24/04/1985

Domain name space

Today, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) manages the top-level development and architecture of the Internet domain name space. It authorizes domain name registrars, through which domain names may be registered and reassigned.

The domain name space consists of a tree of domain names. Each node in the tree holds information associated with the domain name. The tree sub-divides into zones beginning at the DNS root zone.

Domain name syntax

A domain name consists of one or more parts, technically called labels, that are conventionally concatenated, and delimited by dots, such as example.com.

• The right-most label conveys the top-level domain; for example, the domain name www.example.com belongs to the top-level domain com.
• The hierarchy of domains descends from the right to the left label in the name; each label to the left specifies a subdivision, or subdomain of the domain to the right. For example: the label example specifies a node example.com as a subdomain of the com domain, and www is a label to create www.example.com, a subdomain of example.com. Each label may contain from 1 to 63 octets. The empty label is reserved for the root node and when fully qualified is expressed as the empty label terminated by a dot. The full domain name may not exceed a total length of 253 ASCII characters in its textual representation.^[9]
• A hostname is a domain name that has at least one associated IP address. For example, the domain names www.example.com and example.com are also hostnames, whereas the com domain is not. However, other top-level domains, particularly country code top-level domains, may indeed have an IP address, and if so, they are also hostnames.
• Hostnames impose restrictions on the characters allowed in the corresponding domain name. A valid hostname is also a valid domain name, but a valid domain name may not necessarily be valid as a hostname.

Top-level domains

When the Domain Name System was devised in the 1980s, the domain name space was divided into two main groups of domains.^[10] The country code top-level domains (ccTLD) were primarily based on the two-character territory codes of ISO-3166 country abbreviations. In addition, a group of seven generic top-level domains (gTLD) was implemented which represented a set of categories of names and multi-organizations.^[11] These were the domains gov, edu, com, mil, org, net, and int. These two types of top-level domains (TLDs) are the highest level of domain names of the Internet. Top-level domains form the DNS root zone of the hierarchical Domain Name System. Every domain name ends with a top-level domain label.

During the growth of the Internet, it became desirable to create additional generic top-level domains. As of October 2009, 21 generic top-level domains and 250 two-letter country-code top-level domains existed.^[12] In addition, the ARPA domain serves technical purposes in the infrastructure of the Domain Name System.

During the 32nd International Public ICANN Meeting in Paris in 2008,^[13] ICANN started a new process of TLD naming policy to take a «significant step forward on the introduction of new generic top-level domains.» This program envisions the availability of many new or already proposed domains, as well as a new application and implementation process.^[14] Observers believed that the new rules could result in hundreds of new top-level domains to be registered.^[15] In 2012, the program commenced, and received 1930 applications.^[16] By 2016, the milestone of 1000 live gTLD was reached.

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) maintains an annotated list of top-level domains in the DNS root zone database.^[17]

For special purposes, such as network testing, documentation, and other applications, IANA also reserves a set of special-use domain names.^[18] This list contains domain names such as example, local, localhost, and test. Other top-level domain names containing trade marks are registered for corporate use. Cases include brands such as BMW, Google, and Canon.^[19]

Second-level and lower level domains

Below the top-level domains in the domain name hierarchy are the second-level domain (SLD) names. These are the names directly to the left of .com, .net, and the other top-level domains. As an example, in the domain example.co.uk, co is the second-level domain.

Next are third-level domains, which are written immediately to the left of a second-level domain. There can be fourth- and fifth-level domains, and so on, with virtually no limitation. Each label is separated by a full stop (dot). An example of an operational domain name with four levels of domain labels is sos.state.oh.us. ‘sos’ is said to be a sub-domain of ‘state.oh.us’, and ‘state’ a sub-domain of ‘oh.us’, etc. In general, subdomains are domains subordinate to their parent domain. An example of very deep levels of subdomain ordering are the IPv6 reverse resolution DNS zones, e.g., 1.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.ip6.arpa, which is the reverse DNS resolution domain name for the IP address of a loopback interface, or the localhost name.

Second-level (or lower-level, depending on the established parent hierarchy) domain names are often created based on the name of a company (e.g., bbc.co.uk), product or service (e.g. hotmail.com). Below these levels, the next domain name component has been used to designate a particular host server. Therefore, ftp.example.com might be an FTP server, www.example.com would be a World Wide Web server, and mail.example.com could be an email server, each intended to perform only the implied function. Modern technology allows multiple physical servers with either different (cf. load balancing) or even identical addresses (cf. anycast) to serve a single hostname or domain name, or multiple domain names to be served by a single computer. The latter is very popular in Web hosting service centers, where service providers host the websites of many organizations on just a few servers.

The hierarchical DNS labels or components of domain names are separated in a fully qualified name by the full stop (dot, .).

Internationalized domain names

The character set allowed in the Domain Name System is based on ASCII and does not allow the representation of names and words of many languages in their native scripts or alphabets. ICANN approved the Internationalized domain name (IDNA) system, which maps Unicode strings used in application user interfaces into the valid DNS character set by an encoding called Punycode. For example, københavn.eu is mapped to xn--kbenhavn-54a.eu. Many registries have adopted IDNA.

Domain name registration

History

The first commercial Internet domain name, in the TLD com, was registered on 15 March 1985 in the name symbolics.com by Symbolics Inc., a computer systems firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

By 1992, fewer than 15,000 com domains had been registered.

In the first quarter of 2015, 294 million domain names had been registered.^[20] A large fraction of them are in the com TLD, which as of December 21, 2014, had 115.6 million domain names,^[21] including 11.9 million online business and e-commerce sites, 4.3 million entertainment sites, 3.1 million finance related sites, and 1.8 million sports sites.^[22] As of July 2012 the com TLD had more registrations than all of the ccTLDs combined.^[23]

Administration

The right to use a domain name is delegated by domain name registrars, which are accredited by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the organization charged with overseeing the name and number systems of the Internet. In addition to ICANN, each top-level domain (TLD) is maintained and serviced technically by an administrative organization operating a registry. A registry is responsible for maintaining the database of names registered within the TLD it administers. The registry receives registration information from each domain name registrar authorized to assign names in the corresponding TLD and publishes the information using a special service, the WHOIS protocol.

Registries and registrars usually charge an annual fee for the service of delegating a domain name to a user and providing a default set of name servers. Often, this transaction is termed a sale or lease of the domain name, and the registrant may sometimes be called an «owner», but no such legal relationship is actually associated with the transaction, only the exclusive right to use the domain name. More correctly, authorized users are known as «registrants» or as «domain holders».

ICANN publishes the complete list of TLD registries and domain name registrars. Registrant information associated with domain names is maintained in an online database accessible with the WHOIS protocol. For most of the 250 country code top-level domains (ccTLDs), the domain registries maintain the WHOIS (Registrant, name servers, expiration dates, etc.) information.

Some domain name registries, often called network information centers (NIC), also function as registrars to end-users. The major generic top-level domain registries, such as for the com, net, org, info domains and others, use a registry-registrar model consisting of hundreds of domain name registrars (see lists at ICANN^[24] or VeriSign).^[25] In this method of management, the registry only manages the domain name database and the relationship with the registrars. The registrants (users of a domain name) are customers of the registrar, in some cases through additional layers of resellers.

There are also a few other alternative DNS root providers that try to compete or complement ICANN’s role of domain name administration, however, most of them failed to receive wide recognition, and thus domain names offered by those alternative roots cannot be used universally on most other internet-connecting machines without additional dedicated configurations.

Technical requirements and process

In the process of registering a domain name and maintaining authority over the new name space created, registrars use several key pieces of information connected with a domain:

• Administrative contact. A registrant usually designates an administrative contact to manage the domain name. The administrative contact usually has the highest level of control over a domain. Management functions delegated to the administrative contacts may include management of all business information, such as name of record, postal address, and contact information of the official registrant of the domain and the obligation to conform to the requirements of the domain registry in order to retain the right to use a domain name. Furthermore, the administrative contact installs additional contact information for technical and billing functions.
• Technical contact. The technical contact manages the name servers of a domain name. The functions of a technical contact include assuring conformance of the configurations of the domain name with the requirements of the domain registry, maintaining the domain zone records, and providing continuous functionality of the name servers (that leads to the accessibility of the domain name).
• Billing contact. The party responsible for receiving billing invoices from the domain name registrar and paying applicable fees.
• Name servers. Most registrars provide two or more name servers as part of the registration service. However, a registrant may specify its own authoritative name servers to host a domain’s resource records. The registrar’s policies govern the number of servers and the type of server information required. Some providers require a hostname and the corresponding IP address or just the hostname, which must be resolvable either in the new domain, or exist elsewhere. Based on traditional requirements (RFC 1034), typically a minimum of two servers is required.

A domain name consists of one or more labels, each of which is formed from the set of ASCII letters, digits, and hyphens (a-z, A-Z, 0–9, -), but not starting or ending with a hyphen. The labels are case-insensitive; for example, ‘label’ is equivalent to ‘Label’ or ‘LABEL’. In the textual representation of a domain name, the labels are separated by a full stop (period).

Business models

Domain names are often seen in analogy to real estate in that domain names are foundations on which a website can be built, and the highest quality domain names, like sought-after real estate, tend to carry significant value, usually due to their online brand-building potential, use in advertising, search engine optimization, and many other criteria.

A few companies have offered low-cost, below-cost or even free domain registration with a variety of models adopted to recoup the costs to the provider. These usually require that domains be hosted on their website within a framework or portal that includes advertising wrapped around the domain holder’s content, revenue from which allows the provider to recoup the costs. Domain registrations were free of charge when the DNS was new. A domain holder may provide an infinite number of subdomains in their domain. For example, the owner of example.org could provide subdomains such as foo.example.org and foo.bar.example.org to interested parties.

Many desirable domain names are already assigned and users must search for other acceptable names, using Web-based search features, or WHOIS and dig operating system tools. Many registrars have implemented domain name suggestion tools which search domain name databases and suggest available alternative domain names related to keywords provided by the user.

Resale of domain names

The business of resale of registered domain names is known as the domain aftermarket. Various factors influence the perceived value or market value of a domain name. Most of the high-prize domain sales are carried out privately.

Domain name confusion

Intercapping is often used to emphasize the meaning of a domain name, because DNS names are not case-sensitive. Some names may be misinterpreted in certain uses of capitalization. For example: Who Represents, a database of artists and agents, chose whorepresents.com,^[26] which can be misread. In such situations, the proper meaning may be clarified by placement of hyphens when registering a domain name. For instance, Experts Exchange, a programmers’ discussion site, used expertsexchange.com, but changed its domain name to experts-exchange.com.^[27]

Use in web site hosting

The domain name is a component of a uniform resource locator (URL) used to access web sites, for example:

• URL: http://www.example.net/index.html
• Top-level domain: net
• Second-level domain: example
• Hostname: www

A domain name may point to multiple IP addresses to provide server redundancy for the services offered, a feature that is used to manage the traffic of large, popular web sites.

Web hosting services, on the other hand, run servers that are typically assigned only one or a few addresses while serving websites for many domains, a technique referred to as virtual web hosting. Such IP address overloading requires that each request identifies the domain name being referenced, for instance by using the HTTP request header field Host:, or Server Name Indication.

Abuse and regulation

Critics often claim abuse of administrative power over domain names. Particularly noteworthy was the VeriSign Site Finder system which redirected all unregistered .com and .net domains to a VeriSign webpage. For example, at a public meeting with VeriSign to air technical concerns about SiteFinder,^[28] numerous people, active in the IETF and other technical bodies, explained how they were surprised by VeriSign’s changing the fundamental behavior of a major component of Internet infrastructure, not having obtained the customary consensus. SiteFinder, at first, assumed every Internet query was for a website, and it monetized queries for incorrect domain names, taking the user to VeriSign’s search site. Unfortunately, other applications, such as many implementations of email, treat a lack of response to a domain name query as an indication that the domain does not exist, and that the message can be treated as undeliverable. The original VeriSign implementation broke this assumption for mail, because it would always resolve an erroneous domain name to that of SiteFinder. While VeriSign later changed SiteFinder’s behaviour with regard to email, there was still widespread protest about VeriSign’s action being more in its financial interest than in the interest of the Internet infrastructure component for which VeriSign was the steward.

Despite widespread criticism, VeriSign only reluctantly removed it after the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) threatened to revoke its contract to administer the root name servers. ICANN published the extensive set of letters exchanged, committee reports, and ICANN decisions.^[29]

There is also significant disquiet regarding the United States Government’s political influence over ICANN. This was a significant issue in the attempt to create a .xxx top-level domain and sparked greater interest in alternative DNS roots that would be beyond the control of any single country.^[30]

Additionally, there are numerous accusations of domain name front running, whereby registrars, when given whois queries, automatically register the domain name for themselves. Network Solutions has been accused of this.^[31]

Truth in Domain Names Act

In the United States, the Truth in Domain Names Act of 2003, in combination with the PROTECT Act of 2003, forbids the use of a misleading domain name with the intention of attracting Internet users into visiting Internet pornography sites.

The Truth in Domain Names Act follows the more general Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act passed in 1999 aimed at preventing typosquatting and deceptive use of names and trademarks in domain names.

Seizures

• Seizure notices

• 

• 

  channelsurfing.net

• 

In the early 21st century, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) pursued the seizure of domain names, based on the legal theory that domain names constitute property used to engage in criminal activity, and thus are subject to forfeiture. For example, in the seizure of the domain name of a gambling website, the DOJ referenced 18 U.S.C. § 981 and 18 U.S.C. § 1955(d).^[32][1] In 2013 the US government seized Liberty Reserve, citing 18 U.S.C. § 982(a)(1).^[33]

The U.S. Congress passed the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act in 2010. Consumer Electronics Association vice president Michael Petricone was worried that seizure was a blunt instrument that could harm legitimate businesses.^[34][35] After a joint operation on February 15, 2011, the DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security claimed to have seized ten domains of websites involved in advertising and distributing child pornography, but also mistakenly seized the domain name of a large DNS provider, temporarily replacing 84,000 websites with seizure notices.^[36]

In the United Kingdom, the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit has been attempting to seize domain names from registrars without court orders.^[37]

Suspensions

PIPCU and other UK law enforcement organisations make domain suspension requests to Nominet which they process on the basis of breach of terms and conditions. Around 16,000 domains are suspended annually, and about 80% of the requests originate from PIPCU.^[38]

Property rights

Because of the economic value it represents, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the exclusive right to a domain name is protected as property under article 1 of Protocol 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights.^[39]

IDN variants

ICANN Business Constituency (BC) has spent decades trying to make IDN variants work at the second level, and in the last several years at the top level. Domain name variants are domain names recognized in different character encodings, like a single domain presented in traditional Chinese and simplified Chinese. It is an Internationalization and localization problem. Under Domain Name Variants, the different encodings of the domain name (in simplified and traditional Chinese) would resolve to the same host.^[40][41]

According to John Levine, an expert on Internet related topics, «Unfortunately, variants don’t work. The problem isn’t putting them in the DNS, it’s that once they’re in the DNS, they don’t work anywhere else.»^[40]

Fictitious domain name

A fictitious domain name is a domain name used in a work of fiction or popular culture to refer to a domain that does not actually exist, often with invalid or unofficial top-level domains such as «.web», a usage exactly analogous to the dummy 555 telephone number prefix used in film and other media. The canonical fictitious domain name is «example.com», specifically set aside by IANA in RFC 2606 for such use, along with the .example TLD.

Domain names used in works of fiction have often been registered in the DNS, either by their creators or by cybersquatters attempting to profit from it. This phenomenon prompted NBC to purchase the domain name Hornymanatee.com after talk-show host Conan O’Brien spoke the name while ad-libbing on his show. O’Brien subsequently created a website based on the concept and used it as a running gag on the show.^[42]

Misspelled domain names

Misspelled domain names, also known as typosquatting or URL hijacking, are domain names that are intentionally or unintentionally misspelled versions of popular or well-known domain names. The goal of misspelled domain names is to capitalize on internet users who accidentally type in a misspelled domain name, and are then redirected to a different website.

Misspelled domain names are often used for malicious purposes, such as phishing scams or distributing malware. In some cases, the owners of misspelled domain names may also attempt to sell the domain names to the owners of the legitimate domain names, or to individuals or organizations who are interested in capitalizing on the traffic generated by internet users who accidentally type in the misspelled domain names.

To avoid being caught by a misspelled domain name, internet users should be careful to type in domain names correctly, and should avoid clicking on links that appear suspicious or unfamiliar. Additionally, individuals and organizations who own popular or well-known domain names should consider registering common misspellings of their domain names in order to prevent others from using them for malicious purposes.

Domain name spoofing

The term Domain name spoofing (or simply though less accurately, Domain spoofing) is used generically to describe one or more of a class of phishing attacks that depend on falsifying or misrepresenting an internet domain name.^[43][44] These are designed to persuade unsuspecting users into visiting a web site other than that intended, or opening an email that is not in reality from the address shown (or apparently shown).^[45] Although website and email spoofing attacks are more widely known, any service that relies on domain name resolution may be compromised.

Types

There are a number of better-known types of domain spoofing:

• Typosquatting also called «URL hijacking», a «sting site», or a «fake URL», is a form of cybersquatting, and possibly brandjacking which relies on mistakes such as typos made by Internet users when inputting a website address into a web browser or composing an email address. Should a user accidentally enter an incorrect domain name, they may be led to any URL (including an alternative website owned by a cybersquatter).^[46]

The typosquatter’s URL will usually be one of five kinds, all similar to the victim site address:

• A common misspelling, or foreign language spelling, of the intended site
• A misspelling based on a typographical error
• A plural of a singular domain name
• A different top-level domain: (i.e. .com instead of .org)
• An abuse of the Country Code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD) (.cm, .co, or .om instead of .com)

• Internationalised domain name homograph attack. This type of attack depends on registering a domain name that is similar to the ‘target’ domain, differing from it only because its spelling includes one or more characters that come from a different alphabet but look the same to the naked eye. For example, the Cyrillic, Latin, and Greek alphabets each have their own letter A, each of which has its own binary code point. Turkish has a dotless letter i (ı) that may not be perceived as different from the ASCII letter i. Most web browsers warn of ‘mixed alphabet’ domain names, ^{[47][48][49][50]} Other services, such as email applications, may not provide the same protection. Reputable top level domain and country code domain registrars will not accept applications to register a deceptive name but this policy cannot be presumed to be infallible.
• DNS spoofing – Cyberattack using corrupt DNS data
• Website spoofing – Creating a website, as a hoax, with the intention of misleading readers
• Email spoofing – Creating email spam or phishing messages with a forged sender identity or address

Risk mitigation

• Domain Name System Security Extensions – Suite of IETF specifications for securing certain kinds of information provided by DNS
• Sender Policy Framework – Simple email-validation system designed to detect email spoofing
• DMARC – System to prevent email fraud («Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance»)
• DomainKeys Identified Mail – Email authentication method designed to detect email spoofing
• Public key certificate – Electronic document used to prove the ownership of a public key (SSL certificate)

Legitimate technologies that may be subverted

• URL redirection – Technique for making a Web page available under more than one URL address
• Domain fronting – Technique for Internet censorship circumvention

See also

References

External links

• (domain bias in web search) a research by Microsoft
• Top Level Domain Bias in Search Engine Indexing and Rankings
• Domain Names at Curlie
• Icann New gTLD Program Factsheet — October 2009 (PDF)
• IANA Two letter Country Code TLD
• ICANN — Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
• Internic.net, public information regarding Internet domain name registration services
• Internet Domain Names: Background and Policy Issues Congressional Research Service
• RFC 1034, Domain Names — Concepts and Facilities, an Internet Protocol Standard
• RFC 1035, Domain Names — Implementation and Specification, an Internet Protocol Standard
• UDRP, Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy
• Special use domain names

Securing a domain or domain name is the first step in creating an online presence that will help you get found by prospects on Google and other search engines. 

In this post, we’ll cover everything you need to know about these terms so you can continue the process of setting up a website for your business. You can skip ahead to any of the sections below:

• what a domain is
• what domains are used for
• what a domain name is (and what parts it’s made up of)
• types of domains

Every website has an IP address, which is a unique string of numbers that connect computers to web servers. IP addresses are great for computers, but difficult for people to memorize. That’s where domains come in. A domain name is connected to a website’s IP address so people can more easily remember and search for a website by its domain and their browser can still find the specific web server that hosts the website via the associated IP address. 

A domain is often compared to a home address. Your friends don’t memorize your house’s GSP coordinates every time they want to visit you. Instead, they just plug in your street address into their phones. The same goes for visiting a website. Instead of memorizing a website’s IP address, visitors simply type in the domain into their browser. 

What does a domain look like?

A domain typically consists of two or three words separated by dots. For example, blog.hubspot.com is a domain. 

A domain is one part of a complete web address, or URL. A URL typically consists of a protocol, domain name, and path. For example, the URL of this blog post is: https://blog.hubspot.com/service/what-is-a-domain. It’s made up of the following parts:

• protocol («https://»)
• domain name («blog.hubspot.com»)
  • subdomain («blog.»)
  • second-level domain («hubspot»)
  • top-level domain («.com»)
• subdirectory («/website/»)
• path («/what-is-a-domain»)

We’ll cover the parts of a domain name in more detail below. First, let’s cover why domains are important. 

What are domains used for?

Domains are not only used to simplify how visitors find your website. Below we’ll look at several other reasons domains are used. 

1. To Gain Ownership

Perhaps most importantly, a domain gives you ownership over your website’s address. No one else can claim it while you have it registered. This grants you total control over what website it points to, which domain name registrar maintains it, what information is associated with your domain name account, who administers it, and whether you want to sell it. 

2. To Solidify Your Brand Identity

A domain name that matches or resembles your company name can help you establish a consistent online brand identity. A visitor moving from your website’s homepage to blog to knowledge base, for example, will notice that the core domain name remains consistent, as do other elements like the color scheme and typography. 

3. To Establish Credibility

A domain name that aligns with your company name establishes credibility, and makes your website appear more legitimate and professional to users. That builds trust with your visitors so they feel comfortable taking actions, like submitting a survey or form on a web page with that same domain name.

Some website builders will provide a templated subdomain to free users, such as accountname.wixsite.com/address. However, a custom website complete with a custom domain name such as accountname.com may seem more credible and professional to incoming visitors!

4. To Be Memorable

If your domain is easy to remember, visitors can easily enter it into their search bars. This may result in more direct traffic to your site. For example, T-Bones Great American Eatery has a short and sweet domain name: t-bones.com. This is much easier to remember than an alternative like t-bonesgreatamericaneatery.com.

5. To Stand Out Against Competitors

A simple but catchy domain name can set you apart from competing sites with clunkier or confusing domains. For example, if Google had been named BackRub, it might not have competed as well with Yahoo and other search engines.

6. To Build Authority

In addition to strengthening your brand, domain names can also help you predict how likely your website will appear in the SERPs compared to your competitors. As a rule of thumb, the older a domain is, the more authority it has. That’s because it’s had time to accumulate quality content, internal links, and backlinks.

What is a domain name?

A domain name is the unique name of a website. It functions like the site’s home address on the World Wide Web.

The term “domain name” is used interchangeably with the term «domain.» The only difference is that one is the name of the thing and one is the thing itself. 

Not including its extension, like “.com”, the maximum length a domain name can be is 63 characters. The minimum length can be one character.

For a quick overview of what a domain name is and what it’s made of, check out this video by Elegant Themes. Then continue on to learn about domain names in more detail.

The Parts of a Domain Name

There are typically two parts of a domain: the second-level domain and the top-level domain. If read left-to-right, these parts decrease in specificity.

Second-Level Domain (SLD)

The second-level domain is the unique identifier for your website. It’s the part of your domain that comes before “.com” or another extension.

If you’re building a website for your business, consider buying a domain that reflects your business’s name. This will make it easier for people to find your website without needing to spend a lot of time scouring Google for it. For instance, hubspot.com’s second-level domain is “hubspot”.

Top-Level Domain (TLD)

The top-level domain is the extension, or the part of your domain that comes after your second-level domain.

It specifies what type of entity your organization registers as on the internet. For example, HubSpot’s top-level domain is “.com” since we’re a commercial entity in the United States.

Most American businesses also register their website with “.com”.  In fact, according to data from Verisign, the largest TLD in 2021 was .com, with 158.6 million reported domain names in the domain name base.

What is a domain name example?

An example of a domain name is usps.com. This is made up of a second-level domain («usps») and top-level domain («.com). It is one of the most visited government domain names, according to Statista. 

Other examples of popular domain names are «youtube.com», «irs.gov», and «tiktok.com». Check out more in the list below:

These are just a few domain name examples — there are literally millions more. According to data from Verisign, there were over 360 million registered domain names at the end of 2021.

To get a better idea of possible domain names, let’s look at different types of domains below.

Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD)

gTLD refers to the best known and most broadly used TLDS: 

• .com
• .net
• .biz
• .org
• .info

.com is the most popular by far. As of January 2022, 54% of global websites used a .com top-level domain. The next most popular — .ru — is only used by 5%.

Country Code Top-Level Domains (ccTLD)

These two-letter TLDs refer to specific geographical locations. Here are the most common ones: 

• .cn (China)
• .ru (Russia)
• .de (Germany)
• .br (Brazil)
• .au (Australia)
• .uk (United Kingdom)
• .nl (Netherlands)

Internationalized Country Code Top-Level Domains (IDN ccTLD)

These are domains that can be displayed in non-Latin character sets (e.g. Chinese).

Subdomain

A subdomain is a domain that is part of a larger domain, appearing before the root domain name (e.g. blog.hubspot.com). Since a subdomain appears to the left of the SLD, it is also referred to as a third-level domain (3LD).

Another example of a domain name with a subdomain is tools.usps.com. It is made up of a subdomain («tools.»), a second-level domain («usps»), and top-level domain («.com). 

You may already be familiar with this domain name. In March 2022, it was the most popular government domain, getting over 244 million visits in 30 days according to Statista.

Now that you know what a domain is, you’re ready to register one. Check out the step-by-step process in Everything You Need to Know about Custom Domains.

Pro Tip: CMS Hub users can add their custom domain to HubSpot for free. This allows you to connect your new domain to hosting, CDN, and security features all at one time.

Setting Up Your Domain

If you want to acquire a domain name, you must buy one and register it. To do this, visit a domain name registrar, like GoDaddy or Google Domains, plug your desired domain name in, check its availability and price, and then buy it, if it’s in your price range. From there, you’ll be able to associate that domain with your server and hosting provider, making your site accessible via the web address.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in February 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

A domain name, such as ‘google.com‘ or ‘facebook.com,’ is an easy-to-remember address used to access sites. The DNS system allows users to connect to websites using domain names. In simple words, your website’s domain name is the address that users type into the URL bar of their browser to access it.

For example, If your website is a home, the address for your home would be your domain name.

Let’s Understand It With a More Comprehensive Explanation:

The Internet is a massive network of computers linked together by a worldwide network of cables. This network’s computers can communicate with one another.

Each device is given an IP (Internet Protocol) address to be identified over the network. It’s a string of integers that uniquely identifies a machine on the Internet. The following is an example of a specific IP address:

103.21.234.0

A website’s actual address is a complex numerical IP address, but because of DNS, users can type in human-friendly domain names and be directed to the websites they want. A DNS lookup is the term for this process.

You no longer need to input a long string of digits to access a website. Instead, type an easy-to-remember domain name into your browser’s address bar to view it.

I hope you now have understood what a domain name is.

Who Is Responsible For Domain Names?

The Internet Corporation manages the domain name system for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). It is a non-profit organization that develops and executes domain name policies.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) grants Domain Name Registrars authority to sell domain names. These domain registrars have the authority to make modifications to the register on your behalf.

Registrars can sell domain names, maintain their records, renew them, and transfer them to other registrars.

You are responsible for informing the registrar where to send inquiries as to the domain name owner. You’re also in charge of keeping your domain registration active. 

A registrar can register a domain name for anybody who wants to start a website, and there are already over 300 million registered domain names.

How Do Domain Names work?

When you type a domain name into your web browser, it sends a request to the Domain Name System (DNS), a worldwide network of servers.

The name servers connected with the domain are then looked up, and the request is sent to those nameservers.

If Namecheap hosts your website, for example, the name server details will be as follows:

dns1.namecheaphosting.com
dns2.namecheaphosting.com

These nameservers are computers that your hosting provider manages. Your hosting provider will send your request to the server which holds your website.

A web server is a name given to this computer. It is equipped with specialized software (Apache, Nginx are two popular web server software). The web server now retrieves the site page as well as any associated data.

It then transmits this information back to the web browser.

The Structure of a Domain Name

Typically, domain names are divided into two or three parts, each separated by a dot (.). The identifiers in domain names move from most broad to most particular when read right-to-left. The top-level domain is the part of a domain name to the right of the final dot (TLD). These include “generic” TLDs like “.com,” “.net,” and “.org,” as well as country-specific TLDs like “.uk” and “.jp.”

The second-level domain (2LD) lies to the left of the TLD, and everything beyond the 2LD is referred to as the third-level domain (3LD). Consider the following examples:

‘google.com’ is Google’s US domain name.

• The TLD (top-level domain) ‘.com’ is the most common.
• The 2LD is ‘google’ (most specific)

However, the domain name ‘google.co.uk’ refers to Google UK:

• The TLD (top-level domain) is ‘.com’
•  2LD is ‘.co’.
• The 3LD (most specific) is ‘google.’

The 2LD shows the organization that registered the domain in this circumstance (.co in the UK is for sites registered by companies).

Different Types Of Domain Name

Many unique extensions are available for domain names. The most well-known is .com. Other domain extensions include .org, .net, .tv, .info, .io, .net, .dev and more. However, the .com domain extension is always recommended.

Let’s take a closer look at the many sorts of domain names that are accessible.

Top-Level Domain – TLD

TLDs, or top-level domains, are generic domain extensions that appear at the top of the domain name system.

There are hundreds of top-level domains (TLDs), but the most common are .com, .org, and .net. Other TLDs are less well-known and should not be used. For instance, .biz, .club, .info, .agency, and a slew of more.

Country Code Top Level Domain – ccTLD

Country code top-level domains, or ccTLDs, are domain names that finish in a country code extension, such as .pk for Pakistan, .tr for Turkey, and .in for India, etc.

Websites owners that wish to target viewers in a single country use these types of extensions for their domain name.

Sponsored Top-Level Domain – sTLD

A sponsored top-level domain, or sTLD, is a type of TLD in which the sponsor represents a specific community that the domain extension represents.

For example,.edu is for educational institutions, .gov is for government websites, and .mil is for the military or Armed forces.

What Is a Subdomain?

A subdomain is essentially a subdomain of the main domain. extra.techabu.co, for example, is a subdomain of techabu.co.

You can establish subdomains for a domain once it has been registered.

Websites frequently utilize subdomains to establish subsidiary sites using the same domain name. For example, a company website can designate store.example.com or blog.example.com as a subdomain for their blog or online store.

What’s The Difference Between a URL and a Domain Name?

A uniform resource locator (URL), also known as a web address, comprises a site’s domain name and additional details such as the transfer protocol and route. For example, in the URL ‘https://techabu.co/edu/z-library/,’ the domain name is techabu.co, the protocol is HTTPS, and the path to a specific page of a website is /z-library/.

How Can I Purchase A Domain Name?

A domain name can be purchased from one of the numerous domain name registrars. The average cost of a domain name is $14.99 per year. The following are some well-known domain name companies:

1. GoDaddy
2. Namecheap
3. Domain

However, purchasing a domain name does not imply that you will be provided with hosting. You’ll also need a hosting website account for this.

Many WordPress hosting companies also provide domain registration. This allows you to handle both services from a single account, and you won’t have to bother about updating your domain’s name server settings.

Conclusion

We hope that this post educated you on what a domain name is and how domain names work. If you enjoyed this post, please share it with your friends and colleagues. 

Also, if you’ve any questions, you can ask them in the comment section below, and we will reply to them at the earliest.