Many people tend to confuse the terms domain name, website hosting and website. A domain name is the address of a website. This is the name that you need to type on the browser URL bar to take you to the landing page of the website.
When a domain name is entered into the web browser, a request is sent to the Domain Name System or DNS which is the name given to the global network of servers. A search for the name servers related to the domain will begin. The name servers are computers that are under the management of your web hosting company. The request will be forwarded to the computer where this website is served. This is called the web server. It will find the web age and all information that is relevant to it and send the findings to the browser. If you are looking for a domain name for your business, you can look up some domain name examples to get an idea. There are do’s and don’ts when it comes to creating domain names. The main rule is that it is easy to type in and remember. There are so many domain names that are registered at the moment so it can be a time consuming process to come up with one for your website as some of the names you want may be already taken.
A website contains multiple files such as images, HTML pages, software etc. There are hosting companies that provide services for people who want to create a new website. They will provide a computer which is called the web server to store the website. All files related to your website are stored here. These computers are called servers. You need both a domain name and web hosting to create a website. But these are different services so you can obtain them from two different companies as well. There are companies that offer both, however. This is the recommended option as it allows you to easily manage the operation of the website.
There are many extensions for domain names and the most popular one that you are familiar with is .com. Examples of other extensions are .org, .net and .info. The generic domain extensions are called the top level domain. These are listed higher in the domain name system and these include .com, .info and .net extensions. Then there are country specific domain names that have a country code extension at the end of it such as .in for India and .uk for the United Kingdom. These are best if you are planning to target an audience in one country. There are also sponsored top level domains such as .edu or .gov. These are used when there is a sponsor to represent a community that is targeted by the domain extension. The domain names system is managed by ICANN or the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers which is a non-profit organisation. The domain name registrars get the permission of ICANN to sell domain names. They can also renew domain names, transfer the name to another transfer and manage all records pertaining to the name.
