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What is a Domain Name?
A domain name is effectively and address used by web surfers to find a website.
For example the domain name http://www.NICtips.com is used by web surfers to
find NICtips.com’s web site. Each domain name is translated by computers into a
numerical sequence that computers can understand. If you are looking for some
“in depth” information about domain names you will find some technical terms
used in the domain name industry below.
The term “domain name” is a very general term and is often preceded by another
term to more specifically define to what someone is referring.
First of all, there are different levels of domain names as the following
examples and definitions show.
1) Top Level Domains (sometimes called a TLD) (http://www.nictips.com)
2) Second level domains (http://www.nictips.com)
3) Third level domains (http://subdomain.nictips.com)
4) Country code Top Level Domain (called a ccTLD) ie: http;//www.nictips.ca (
Canada)
1) There are several Top Level Domain’s (TLD’s) in existence today, the most
widely used is .com. The 1980’s brought the existence of several gTLD’s (generic
TLD’s) which include: com, .net, .org, .edu, .gov, .int, and .mil. The public
was allowed to register second level domains in only .com, .net, and .org and
the others had certain restrictions which needed to be met in order to register
a second level domain (e.g., you needed to work for the government in order to
register in the .gov TLD).
Other gTLD’s came into existence circa 2001, including: .info, .biz, .name, and
.pro. Only .info is unrestricted and allows the public to register without
owning a business for .biz and being some sort of professional (e.g., doctor or
lawyer) for .pro. It appears that new gTLD’s will be added in the future. Adding
new gTLD’s gives people the opportunity to register a domain name in a new TLD
that is taken in an existing TLD (e.g., www.what.com is taken but someone can
now register www.what.tv ).
There are also several existing sTLD’s (sponsored TLD’s) which include aero,
.coop, and .museum. It looks as if more sTLD’s will be added in the future. A
sTLD has a “sponsor” which represents a niche community (e.g., .aero represents
airports, air pilots, and other air related web sites). http://www.domainbank.com
is the largest .aero registrar as of this writing.
You can visit http://www.icann.org/tlds/ for more information regarding TLD’s
2) Most people refer to the term “domain name” when describing a second level
domain name. A second level domain name is the part of the domain that proceeds
the TLD (e.g., nictips.com). The second level domain name is limited by several
factors such as: length of domain name (about 63 characters is the maximum
length), until recently only roman characters have been acceptable (numbers and
letters), the only other character is the hyphen, which can not be used at the
beginning or end of the domain but only within a domain (e.g., nic-tips.com is
ok, but nictips-.com and -nictips.com are not). There are currently programs which
are adding umlauts and other characters into the acceptable character realm.
3) Third level domains like subdomain.nictips.com are widespread but used much
less that second level domain names. The owner of a second level domain can add
infinite third level domains to their second level domain name but web masters
tend to add file extensions instead. For example a web master would add
nictips.com/seo.html rather than seo.nictips.com. The www in www.nictips.com stands
for World Wide Web and is a third level domain that is most often a default set
by a webmaster (i.e., an internet surfer could type in “www.domain.com” or just
“domain.com” and get the exact same web page). Sometimes you will see larger web
sites use www1 and www2 to proceed their second level domain name. These are
third level domains which typically are directing Internet traffic to different
web servers to help balance the load of a lot of Internet traffic.
4) ccTLD’s are representative of sovereign countries, for example a .uk TLD is
referencing the United Kingdom. There are many ccTLD’s each with their own set
of rules for who can and can not register a second level domain in their ccTLD.
Each also has its own price point and individual set of rules. You can find a
good list of ccTLD’s at
http://www.iana.org/cctld/cctld-whois.htm
Domain Information
NICtips.com has a large amount of domain name information for your reference.
Below you will find information on domain names, domain transfers, how to renew
domains, domain hosting, as well as other valuable domain information.
Domain Name
A domain name is a unique identifier that allows internet users to find and use
a specific web site. There are several different levels of domain names, (e.g.,
www.NICTIPS.com , where "com" is the Top Level Domain, "domain" is the second
level domain, and "www" is the third level domain) -
more about domain name
Domain Transfer
A domain name transfer is when the current holder/registrant of a domain name
wishes to change companies that provides domain name services. A domain transfer
can only be done by the registrant or administrative contact who is listed on
the current domain name registration record -
more about domain transfer
Domain Register
Domain register is another term often used for domain registration. Domain
register is simply the process to register domain names or may also refer to a
company which provides domain name registration -
more about domain register
Domain Renewal
Domain renewal is simply when the current registrant wants to extend the term of
time for a given domain name. You can renew domains at any time, but is often
done within a few months of when a domain name's term of time is about to run
out -
more about domain renewal
Domain Name Service
The Domain Name System (DNS) is synonymous with domain name service. It is the
method by which Internet addresses in mnemonic form such as NICTIPS.com are
converted into the equivalent numeric IP address such as 219.87.60.123 -
more
about domain name service
Domain Hosting
Domain hosting is a service which provides the customer with space on the domain
hosts computers (called servers - because they serve the information they hold
to the internet) so anyone on the internet can see their site -
more about domain hosting
SEO
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is an attempt to design and market your web
site so that it will be found in the top results of a search engine query when
someone is looking for anything related to your web sites products, services, or
information. -
more about SEO
Domain History
Another great online resource for checking the history of any domain name is the
internets web archive. This website produces any domains previous statistics and
it will also allow you to see how any given domain name looked in the past.
http://www.archive.org/
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