Introduction of Domain Name, Domain Name System (DNS), IP Address, World Wide Web (www) and Uniform Resource Locator (URL)

Written on February 23, 2016 by Claudio Dias in All about Internet, Domain No Comments

Domain Name:

A unique name that identifies a website is called domain name. Each website has a domain name which is used to access the website. For example www.tipsandarticles.com is a domain name. symbolics.com is the first domain name on internet was registered by a computer company named Massachusetts on 15th March, 1985. Last part of a domain name is called Domain Suffix. For example .com, .net, .org etc.

.com domains names mostly used by commercial websites and .org used by the organizations. Domain name is the location of a website. Domain names are procedures of the DNS (Domain Name System). Internet Protocol (IP) is represented by a domain name. Domain name may be a business name, company name or a single keyword related to a specific field. Domain name must be short, memorable and easy to spell. It is used in URLs (Uniform Resource Locator) to identify a particular webpage. A URL contains detailed information e.g:-

http://www.tipsandarticles.com/category/computer/information-technology/

Each part of the domain name has specific information which enables the web browsers to access the web page.

The List of Top Level Domains (TLD):

.com : Commercial or business entity
.net : Network services
.org : Organizations
.edu : Educational institutions (Universities / Colleges)
.gov : Government Departments
.aero : Air Lines
.biz : Business
.info : Unrestricted

Top Domain Registrars in World:

It can be register for one year (minimum) through domain registrar. Domain name can be renewed every year or after few years. If you are planning to buy a domain name online from a good company then the following list is for you:

GoDaddy
NameCheap
iPage
HostGator
BlueHost (Recommended)
1and1
InMotionHosting
Name.com
Register
DreamHost
Domain Name System

DNS was introduced by Paul Mockapetris and Jon Postel in 1983. A Domain Name System (DNS) is a network server that helps to point domain names / hostnames to their associated Internet Protocol address.

How does DNS Work?

When a user wants to visit a website, he types in address bar of his web browser “tipsandarticles.com”. After entering the domain name, it is looked up on a DNS (Domain Name System) and translated into an IP address, e.g. 216.144.251.66. By using of that IP address, tipsandarticles.com web page will be located by the Personal Computer (PC). DNS is a system that stores information about domain names and corresponding IP address. It provides user-friendly addressing scheme. Because most people have trouble remembering the strings of numbers i.e IP address. For example, www.tipsandarticles.com is a permanent, human readable name. Its domain name is easier to remember than its IP address.

Internet Protocol Address (IP Address):

To identify individual computers on a network, each computer is assigned a unique address called an IP address. IP stands for Internet protocol, and these addresses are 32-bit numbers. An IP address is a string of numbers and looks like this: 216.144.251.66

IP address is the different from a domain name having numerical instructions. Domain names and IP are linked with each other. The four numbers in an IP address are called octets because they can have values between 0 and 255. Every machine on the Internet has a unique IP address. A server has a static IP address. A home machine that is dialing up through a modern often has an IP address that is assigned by the ISP.

World Wide Web (www):

The World Wide Web was launched in 1989 by English Scientist Tim Berners-Lee for adding footnote, and cross-references in hypertext documents. www used to identify (distinguish) the content. The www uses http (hyper text transfer protocol) to link hypertext documents (web pages) on the World Wide Web. A web page is a document that is written in HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). A hypertext document is also called a Web Page. The process of launching web page is called publishing the page. A collection of related web pages is called a Web Site. Web sites are hosted on server computers on the Internet. These computers are called Web Servers.

Uniform Resource Locator (URL):

Each web page has a unique address on World Wide Web. This is called Uniform Resource Locator (URL). If you want to access a web page on the World Wide Web, you will have to specify the URL of the required page in the web browser. Protocol Identifier is the first part of the URL and Resource Name is the second part of the URL.