In this article we will cover the basics of what a domain name is, how they work, and why you need to have at least one. I’m going to try to avoid complicated computer terms and stick to explanations that should be easily understood by someone without a computer science degree.

What is a domain name? Before we can discuss what a domain name is, I’ll tell you why we need them, as the answers complement each other. The Internet is just a large collection of connected computers (a network). For the purpose of explaining domain names, you can think of the Internet a bit like the telephone system, and like the telephone system, every computer on the Internet has its own telephone number, except that an Internet telephone number is called IP addresses. This address is made up of up to 12 digits in the form 123.123.123.123, computers use these IP addresses to send information to each other over the Internet.

When the Internet was first created, it quickly became clear that these IP addresses were not easy to remember and another method was needed to make these addresses more human-friendly. The solution to this was the Domain Name System (DNS). Basically, DNS is a really great phone book for computers. When you type the address of a website in your web browser, it checks the DNS for the name of that website and finds the IP address. Once you have the IP address, you can send a message to that computer and ask for the web page you want.

Okay, so you know that a domain name is part of a website address, but from which part? Let’s take a look at a website address so that we can identify and discuss which part of it is a domain name.

http://www.itxcel.com/index.html

The above address is the home page of the itXcel website. It can be divided into 3 main parts. The first part is http: // this just tells your web browser what kind of information it is going to get and how to get it. The last part is /index.html. This is the name of the files on the remote computer that you want your browser to retrieve. The bit in the middle www.itxcel.com is a domain name. This is the name that your computer sends to DNS to retrieve the IP address.

So you know what a domain name is and that there is a phone book called DNS to change your easy-to-remember domain name to an IP address that your computer can understand. The Internet Phone Book (DNS) is special because all Internet users must be able to use it. This makes the DNS very large (more than 100 million addresses). Due to the size of this phone book, it needed to have a carefully organized and managed structure.

The domain names themselves are divided into different levels as a hierarchy. The DNS system uses this hierarchy to search DNS for the IP address of the domain name it is trying to find. The last bit of a domain, in the example above, the com part is called the top-level domain. There is a large selection of top-level domains such as com, net, org, and info. There are also very similar endings called country-level domains like uk and de. Each of the country and top-level domains are managed by a different organization, sometimes they are companies or non-profit organizations, and sometimes governments. In the domain business, these organizations are called registries. Each registry takes care of its own part of the domain name system.

If you decide that you want to use a domain name in the top-level domain com, such as mycompany.com, you will need to have this name assigned by the registry that manages that top-level domain (for .com, a US company called VeriSign). The process of assigning a domain name is called domain registration.

Domain registration is more like a lease than a purchase. You are renting the second-level domain (the mycompany bit) from Verisign for a specified period of time, typically between 1 and 10 years at a time. Most organizations that allow you to register a second-level domain charge a fee for each year for which you register the domain. With almost all domain names, you also have the option to renew your registration (lease) when it is about to run out (expire).

Once you have registered a second-level domain, you can create as many third-level domains (sometimes called subdomains) as you want. In our example above, www is a subdomain of itxcel.com.

Most registries that manage these top-level domain names do not allow individuals or companies to register domains directly with them. To register a domain you need to use a company like itXcel. We act as the registrar and send all the required information and the registration fee to the registry. Registrars are useful as they hide the differences in individual registrations from the customer and provide a simple step-by-step process for registering a domain. A registrar also allows you to manage and track all of your domains from one place rather than having to deal with a different company for each top-level domain.

Well, I know what a domain name is, why do I need one? Can you imagine what a nightmare it would be if you had an email address like [email protected] or a website address? [http://123.246.128.255/?]
These addresses are possible but not very easy to remember. Now if you register a domain name, you can create an email address like [email protected] and a website address like mycompany.com. They are much easier to remember and look 100 times more professional.

One of the important points about registering a domain is that once this is done, you have the exclusive right to use that domain as long as you keep it registered in your name. If you do not renew a domain at the end of its registration period, it will be available again for someone else to register. For this reason, even if you don’t want or need a website right now, it’s a good idea to register a domain as soon as possible. Imagine if your competition registered the domain name of your company or product. Although there is a process to recover these domains, it can be long and complicated. It’s definitely easier to spend a little money up front to secure your chosen domain names.