Articles - Domain Names

Domain Names - What are Domain Names?

Do you know how domain names work? When wandering through the internet, have you ever wondered how companies arrange to have a domain name that matches their company, or how your favorite musical artist has a domain name with their name? This is simply because they have taken the time to register their name as a domain name with the Domain Name System (DNS). The Domain Names System is the administrative portion of the internet which controls how to find specific domain names on the internet. Because computers like to use number for addresses, computers refer to each other with IP addresses. You might have seen these numbers; they are four sets of three digit numbers, something like 192.168.1.1.

The DNS registers names and associates them with specific IP addresses. One IP address can have several domain names associated with it, but that IP address is unique as far as other computers on the internet are concerned. So, when you type in the domain name for a website you want to visit, your computer sends that name to the DNS server in your area and it looks up which IP address is associated with that domain name. When they find a match, they connect your computer with the other computer and the webpage shows up in your browser.

The actual address you put in your browser is called a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). This is made up of a hostname (domain name) and any additional information as to where on that host the specific file may be located. So http://www.google.com is the main website for Google. The “http://” says you want your browser to find a page written in http format. The “www” is nothing more than a place saver. The address google.com and www.google.com go to the same place.

The primary domain name is google.com. The blog server for Google is blogspot.com. If you were to create a blog then the name of the blog would come where the www is normally found. So, googleblog.blogspot.com is a blog written by Google and hosted at blogspot.com. If you wanted your company to have their own website address, you could register your company with the DNS service. Then your website would be http://www.YOURCompany.com. Or your non-profit organization could be www.YOURCompany.org. If it was an internet company it might be www.YOURCompany.net. There are many other options for domain names. Contact your local internet provider and see how you can create your own domain name.