What is a Domain Name?
Simple Answer
Whenever you access a website you put its name or url address in your browser. This names is known as the domain name of the website.
The domain name of a website is like its id or number plate, which identifies it among other websites. Domain names are also known as Domains sometimes.
A Little Bit Detail
Actually all resources (like websites, hosts, mail boxes etc.) on the internet are identified by their network addresses or ip addresses. These addresses are numeric and have the form like 202.162.xxx.xxx, where x can be any integer number.
If you want to try, find the ip address of a website by some tool (ping.exe under Windows for example), then type the ip address of the website in your browser like, http://type ip here and open it. This will take you to the same website.
There are some difficulties in using ip addresses to refer to servers. First, they are difficult to remember and second if some website moves to another server, its ip address changes and then people will have to use the new address.
To resolve these issues, the DNS (Domain Name System) is used. When some one calls or opens a website by its Domain name a procedure call resolver maps (or translates) the name to its ip address, which is further used to establish the connection between the user and the website.
Form/Syntax of a Domain Name
A domain name consists of labels separated by dots(.). For example, www.example.com has three labels.
Each label can have a maximum of 63 ASCII characters and the complete name can have a maximum of 253 characters.
Next :
Top-Level Domains and Sub-Domains
Related:
Domain Name Index
Web Hosting
Free Websites
Search Engine Optimization
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