What Is Domain Name: How Knowledge of Domain Name Uplifts Your Site-building Efforts

If the question in the title arises ‘What is Domain Name?’ probably you will answer ‘I know that’ or ‘The name that I input in the address bar of browser to find a webpage’. Yes, you’re right. This is enough to know if you think only of meeting the need of web browsing and link-sharing only.

But if you are living a life of striving heart and soul for blogging or site-building or money making, you must know what actually Domain Name is, what its technical aspect is and how knowledge of domain name can make you run through your way faster and more confidently. This post about Domain Name is for the readers finding them in second group stated above.

NETPLANTER.COM is committed to the readers to bring out technical posts related to blogging, site building and money-making the way the readers usually like their thought flow through.

Thus now, we’re going to walk you through discovering Domain Name your own way. We’re going to proceed by our Question-Answer model of presentation. This is just like a dialogue between a student and a teacher in an imaginary world. Hope you’re surely going to enjoy!

Why knowledge of Domain Name is necessary

Domain Name is your site’s identity or address in the planet of World Wide Web (WWW). When you register a domain name by your name, you own that domain and nobody else in the globe. It’ll not be exaggerated to say, you own a site means you own a domain. That means your purchased domain is your property. So, won’t you wish to know whom you have purchased the domain from and how and to what extent you are the domain owner and whether you can sell that domain to others or not and so on?

Actually what Domain Name is

QUESTION: Yes, certainly I’d. But I’m not quite sure what this Domain Name is and how does it look.

ANSWER: When you enter a site by clicking a link, the domain shows in browser’s address bar. In other words, when you enter the domain name of a website in the browser’s address bar and hit ENTER, browser will take you to that site.

Suppose, for example, we enter a site, WIikipedia. Now we copy the site address from the browser’s address bar and paste it in Notepad; we find- https://www.wikipedia.com . Here wikipedia.com is the domain name. Below is the list of a number of examples URL where the bracketed part right indicates the domain name of each.

More examples-

1. https://backlinko.com/google-keyword-planner-(backlinko.com)
2. http://www.foodvalues.us-(foodvalues.us)
3. https://wordpress.org-(wordpress.org)
4. https://sites.google.com-(google.com)
5. http://www.bijoy.net-(bijoy.net)
6. http://www.besthealthtips.biz-(besthealthtips.biz)
7. https://foodvalue.info-(foodvalue.info)

QUESTION: What are these long addresses called?

ANSWER: These are called URL (Universal/Uniform Resource Locator). URL is much more than Domain Name. Actually Domain Name is the part of a URL. The URL that is basically formed of domain name only (Example: http://www.bijoy.net where bijoy.net part is the Domain Name) can reach you the site’s home page only. But by definite extended URL, you can reach the definite post, page or even image or other resources of a site. A post URL is structured by adding the post permalink after the domain name followed by a slash (/).

As Domain Name is unique, so is the URL. Every post or page of a website has its own generated link. Such a link customized by the webmaster is called PERMALINK. This permalink added at the end of domain after a slash makes the post or page URL unique also. As in example 1 above, if we browse the address backlinko.com, we can reach the site’s homepage; but if you enter the full URL, you can reach a post of BACKLINKO which is about Google keyword planner.

If you’re not completely sure of URL, check out our handy guide —

♦ URL: Learn Anatomy Of URL Crystal Clear Way

QUESTION: What do the symbols (http and www) before Domain mean?

ANSWER: Domain name of a website/webpage is usually preceded by www. Again www. is preceded by http:// as in example 2.

Here www. means —

1. This is a website/webpage.
2. This web resources are part of World Wide Web (www)
3. Resources of this webpage are stored in a remote WEB SERVER
4. Data transfer between server and client computer occurs through http (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) where Client is web browser or Users. That is why www. is followed by http://
5. Here www is not part of domain name; rather, it is sub-domain of the main domain that indicates Web Server. Actually it is reserved sub-domain provided by the WEB SERVER Hosting Companies.

However, there are web addresses where domain is not preceded by www (example 3). This is called ‘Naked Domain’. Also in this case [https://wordpress.org], browser will take an user to the address beginning with www [https://www.wordpress.org]. Therefore, In term of reaching a web address, having or not having www with the domain is the same. But there is slight difference of technical importance between the two versions of url.
For more details read up our following two stuff regarding www —

QUESTION: Then, is there web communication beyond World Wide Web?

ANSWER: Certainly.

Let’s consider a URL-

Now ask yourself, where is www? In this example, here is no www but www is replaced by ‘ftp’. This means this domain is not the www sub-domain of netplanter.com; it is the ftp sub domain of netplanter.com. In other word, the host of this Domain is not Web Server but it is hosted on FTP Server. As a result, it is not part of World Wide Web. If you aren’t sure of what Server or Web Server is, follow these links —

QUESTION: What do the .COM, .NET, .INFO, .BIZ, .ORG, .UK, .US, .GOV at the end of a Domain Name mean?

ANSWER: These are called TLD [Top Level Domain]. Domains having these SUFFIXES mean the category of corresponding websites typically being used the following ways-

• .COM: For commercial website.
• .ORG: For non-profit organization.
• .NET: For websites related to network dealing.
• .INFO: Related to Information-based websites.
• .BIZ: For business organization.
• .GOV: Used for government websites.
• .UK: Country code of United Kingdom.
• .US: Country code of United States of America.

This is a huge list and gradually increasing. These TLD’s were supposed to use for the purposes stated above. But in practice, These rules are randomly violated. Suppose, you are going to build a commercial website on tourism and hence are searching for a domain aiming to find toursandtravels.com. But unfortunately, which is usual, this name has taken by someone. But this name is your first choice. You see that only .org domain is left. Being compelled, you picked toursandtravels.org though yours is not an organization. This is the reality.

How Domain Name does work and How web address finds its way to definite location among millions of web pages?

QUESTION: OK delicious! But how does this Domain Name work? How do we find a remotest web site or web content just by typing domain name in our browser?

ANSWER: The term Domain Name is essentially associated with another term HOSTING. If you build a site and want to make it part of World Wide Web and visible throughout internet, you have to purchase your domain as well as a Web Server’s hosting account and set up your site systematically with domain and hosting plan.

Now how to link your site with purchased domain and hosting? Let’s illustrate this step by step-

First let me explain a few terms in technical sense-

In the world of Internet, every computer is connected with another by CABLE (simply). Then how can we locate or identify each computer when necessary? Certainly by IP Address. Yes every computer has a unique IP address by which we can recognize it. But IP Address is a complex set of number which is very difficult to use, keep in mind or handle with (such as 223.29.212.54).

Therefore in practical field of web, an easily-usable and memorizable name system has been introduced. This is called DNS [Domain Name System/Server]. In this system, you can register a domain name for you which you can connect with a definite IP Address. DNS translates the Domain Name into IP address of a definite computer. So you can access or locate any website or web content which is stored in a definite computer (SERVER) by only typing domain name in browser.

Your website is nothing other than a folder comprised of some files and folders. If you want your files (website) be visible from any corner of the world by typing domain name in browser, those files must be stored in a computer that runs 24 hours, is equipped with necessary software and configuration with uninterruptible fast Internet connection. This computer is called SERVER. And the Server where web resources are stored and transmitted from is Web Server.

WEB SERVERS

Though you can make your computer a server by fulfilling the requirements, there are obvious reasons for this effort being failure. So, in practice, people choose to host their website by internationally recognized and renowned Servers. In other word, people usually buy hosting package from different Server Hosting companies of different space-size, bandwith, duration etc. from SERVER HOSTING companies like Dreamhost, Godaddy, Hostgator, Bluehost and so on.

This is not the right place to illustrate these two giant topics. However for the purpose of our current article, we will roughly get you acquainted with them. Short form of Hypertext Markup Language the HTML (html) is the basic website-building language. Whichever platform you use, either WordPress, Blogger, Joomla, Durpal or your own coding skill to make a website, the root ground language of that site is html. Other web languages like css, javascript, php, Bootstrap all work in the backdrop or background or workspace of html. In other word, all these languages are html.

Now question, how does this html work? There are many significance of html language but now we need to state, how html can create link or hyperlink. Didn’t you see example of hyperlink in your everyday use of computer. If not; open MS Word, go to Insert tab; you will find Hyperlink option. By Hyperlink option you can create link in any word/phrase of your current document to any document of your current folder or any other folder in your hard drive. Being created, you click on that link, you will instantly jump to the defined location.

Similarly you can create link from and to any web site or definite post, page or paragraph of a site by using html language which is accessible by web browser. The way or system or process by which html document is transferred from browser to browser around the World Wide Web is called http [Hypertext Transfer Protocol]. Browser is essential part of this Protocol.

Now let’s find out the solution to the question above

Probably, in the meantime, everything has turned clear to the curious readers. In the process of website building, you enter your Domain Name C-panel which is accessible by Username and Password provided by Domain registrar. From there, go to DNS management where you will find option to change your Nameserver which is provided by your Hosting company.

Actually Nameserver represents the IP Address of your Hosting computer in other technical form. If all these are Okay, you are ready to upload your website files or website system to your Server by using Hosting C-panel which is accessible by Username and Password provided by your Hosting Company. In this way your site is ready to be used around the web.

Now when anybody types your domain or web address in the browser, Browser will send request to the DNS; DNS will translate your domain to the IP address of your server through Nameserver. But notable that your Server doesn’t host only yours but many other sites. From the Server IP, a user will find your site by the Site Name for your domain. Surprisingly enough, all these things occur automatically and instantly.

Now dear readers, hope you all have enjoyed my post ‘What is Domain Name? How Knowledge of Domain Name Uplifts Your Site-building Efforts’ as I confidently assure this explanatory stuff will certainly help a promising site builder get motivated. If so or if you have any question, comment me, please. Your informative and constructive comment will be considered with high emphasis. And if your question is new in term of this article’s necessity, I promise, I’d include clarification with next update.

Originally published at www.netplanter.com on July 12, 2018.