Domain Names Explained: How This Key Innovation Makes The Internet Work

You visit websites every day, sites with names like Google or Wikipedia and with addresses like google.com or wikipedia.org. Most of us don’t take the time to think about what that address means, or how the address system works. It’s a shame we don’t appreciate this more, because of the Domain Name System — the system that makes it possible to find a website by typing in a name — is one of the key innovations that makes the internet work.

What is the Internet?

The internet is nothing more (or less) than a network of computers (or, more accurately, a network of networks). Lots of different computers have content — websites, documents, databases, pictures, application, videos — which the owners of those computers make publicly accessible. All these different computers are linked together to form local networks, which are linked to form regional networks, which are linked to form the world wide web — the network of networks we call “the internet.”

How Do Computers Identify Each Other?

Computers identify each other using long strings of numbers — identification numbers we call “IP Addresses.” These numbers are generated by the computers themselves according to algorithms and systems which guarantee they will be unique. Much like telephone numbers, there are tiers of uniqueness — many people may have the number 867-5309, but only one phone within the 321 area code has that number, and there is only one 321 area code within the United States.

IP Addresses, like phone numbers, make it easy for the computers to communicate with each other but — again, much like phone numbers — they are not particularly meaningful to humans. You might be able to memorize a phone number (especially if you set it to music, but it is much easier to use a phone book or directory.

The Domain Name System

The Domain Name System is that directory. Rather than requiring everyone to keep their own directory and making users type meaningless numbers into their browsers, the DNS maps domain names to IP Addresses.

The Domain Name System is a distributed directory — there is not one, single authoritative list that has every single domain name and its associated IP Address. Rather, responsibility for groups of addresses is divided into domains.

In pre-internet English, a “domain” referred to two different concepts:

• A territory over which an authority exercises control
• A body of knowledge; a subject area.

It turns out that both of these make a lot of sense for how the domain name system works: the authority for each domain exercises control over that domain by being the recognized “expert” (or authority) on a particular body of knowledge — the knowledge of which domain names should be associated with which IP Address.

The root domain in the DNS is the DNS itself — the entire internet. ICAAN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) exercises authority over the domain name system as a whole.

Below the root domain are the Top Level Domains (TLDs). These are well-known as domain-name extensions: .com, .org, .edu, and so forth.

ICAAN has the final authority over who manages each of those domain name extensions. It exercises that authority by managing the root nameservers. What do the root nameservers do? They tell you where to find information on the TLD nameservers.

Each TLD nameserver has information on the domains under it — or, more precisely, it has information on each domain’s nameserver. The domain nameserver is the one that finally tells you the IP Address associated with the domain name that you are looking for.

This is easier to understand if you follow how a request is made by your web browser.

Converting a Domain Name Into an IP Address

You want to visit a website with the address example.com. The following things happen:

1. Your browser sends a message to the root nameserver: “Where can I find example.com?”
2. The root nameserver responds with information about the .com nameserver.
3. The browser now asks the .com nameserver the same question, “Where can I find example.com?
4. The .com nameserver responds with information about the example.com nameserver.
5. The browser send the same message to the example.com nameserver, “Where can I find example.com?
6. The example.com nameserver tells the browser the IP address to use for the request.
7. The browser sends a message to the IP Address specified.
8. The content at example.com is delivered to the browser.

The Purpose of TLDs

The different “domain extensions” or Top Level Domains each have generally-recognized meanings, only some of which are officially enforced.

Some of the more important TLDs include:

• .com — Commercial sites. This is the most popular, and most valuable, TLD.
• .org — Generally understood to mean “non-profit organization,” but that is not an enforced rule. Anyone could use a .org domain name for a personal or even a commerical (for-profit) business. (Though running a .org site as a business seems, at the very least, misleading, and may be unethical.)
• .edu — This is used only for colleges and universities, and its use is restricted.
• .gov — Used only by the United States Government.

There are many other of the gTLDs, or “Generic” Top Level Domains. There are also country-code TLDs (ccTLDs), which are used within each country — .uk, .ru, .us, .de.

Country code domain names are the only two-letter TLDs — all others are three letters or more. Sometimes, country-code TLDs have been used as if they were generic TLDs. This happens when the country-code has another meaning. For example, Tuvalu’s code is .tv, which is used frequently by video sites.

There are also many “new” or “extended” gTLD names, made available over the last few years through recent action by ICANN. These gTLDs, such as .ninja, .gold, and .club open up a wide range of possible domain names.

Name Your Domain

Everyone knows the .com domain names because they are the most common: of the top ten websites in the world, eight of them are .com — and one of the others is the specialized Indian .com: Google.co.in. But there are many other extensions that you’ve almost certainly heard of, like .org. But there are far more than most people know: over a thousand, all with special purposes. These include extensions like .london for people and businesses associated with the city of London, United Kingdom. There are also extensions like .faith for churches and other religious groups.

So regardless of who you are, you may decide that you would like your own internet address. It can be for almost anything: business, family, group, or just something you are interested in like model trains or needlecraft. If you are reading this, the chances are that you’ve already got an idea for a website that you’d like to set up — or just an email address that you’d like to have. After all, [email protected] is a perfectly serviceable email address, but [email protected] is better.

But you can’t have any domain name in the world. You will need to use your own creativity within the limits that the internet has put in place.

Confining Your Creativity

Domain names have various technical requirements. Before you start thinking of a name, you must consider the following:

1. A domain name can have up to 67 characters, including the extension (eg, .com or .org) at the end.
2. The name can include numbers and all 26 letters of the alphabet, but not special characters such as @, #, $, ?, etc.
3. It can include hyphens ( – ), but they can’t occur at the beginning or end of the name.
4. No spaces can be used within a name.
5. A domain name is not case sensitive — learnthenet.com is the same as LearnTheNet.com.

Choosing the Right Name

The internet has been around a long time. As a result, billions of domain names are already taken. Thus, you may find that the most straightforward and compelling domain names that you think of are not available. But with some creativity and flexibility, you can still register a good one. The name you ultimately select really depends on how you plan to use it.

Let’s say your last name is Hernandez and you want to create a website for your family. Perhaps Hernandez.com is already taken. There are all kinds of alternatives. For example, some obvious alternatives include HernandezFamily.com, TheHernandezFamily.com, and Hernandez-Family.com. It isn’t hard to come up with other minor variations from these. But you do risk confusion where someone might mistake your website, Hernandez-Family.com, for someone else’s, HernandezFamily.com. So it might be better to put a bit more work into coming up with a name.

A good way to come up with an appropriate domain name is to brainstorm the process. Get other people involved in the process. Toss out ideas — words that have to do with what it is your website is all about. Let’s go back to our Hernandez family example. Where do they live? What do they like to do? What is unique about the family? Jot it all down. So for the Hernandez family, we might have: Houston; ski; quilt; H-4; raise chickens; work at NASA; funny. The possibilities are almost endless — from the staid HoustonHernandez.com to the cheeky SkiingChickens.com.

A few other points to keep in mind:

• The shorter the name, the better; but don’t make it meaningless in the effort to make it short.
• The name should be easy to remember.
• It should be easy to type without making mistakes; try to avoid characters like “q” and “z” if possible.
• The Internet has become a global medium; ideally, a domain name will be easy to read in a language other than English.
• Avoid numbers unless there is a very good reason to include them.

There Is More to the Internet Than .Com

While most domain names use the .com extension, you’re not restricted to this. You can also register using other common extensions like .net and .org. What’s more, in recent years, a huge number of other extensions have become available like .name, .info, and .pro. There are currently over a thousand of them, each with a particular purpose. For example, if all you really want is an address for the email for your family, you might register Hernandez.email.

Determining If a Domain Name Is Available

All domain name registrars provide tools for checking the availability of a given domain name. For example, Go Daddy has a tool that allows you to check whatever domain you might be interested in — including all of the less common extensions. Once you find a domain that you want to buy, you can buy it anywhere you want — you aren’t limited to Go Daddy or any of the many other domain name registrars.

Get Your Domain

There are lots of reasons for getting your own domain name: website, email, branding, and so on. And it isn’t hard to do or expensive. Just keep in mind what we’ve discussed here and you should be on your way.