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All contents copyright 1997-2012 Bravenet Web Services Inc.
by Brian Stolz
email this articleSummary : Domains are a tricky subject. They seem very straight forward, but after you have purchased one, you slowly begin to realize that there is so much more to them than you had thought. We will take a short look at domain names in this article.
Domain names are basically pointers that direct visitors to a server, or a set of specific servers. You can think of a domain name as a license plate in relation to a car -- the license plate is purchased, but it isn't attached to the car yet. When it is attached, you can find a certain car by using the license plate number.
Every computer that is on the Internet is assigned a number by their Internet Service Provider (ISP). This number is referred to as an "IP Address" and is a string of numbers. The IP address for Bravenet.com is 65.39.176.100. If we did not have domain names you would have to know the IP address of every single website that you wanted to visit.
Domain names are organized into levels. These levels can go as far as you would like to add them, although "Top Level Domain" (TLD), "Domain", and "Sub Domain" are the most commonly used. Below is an exampleof how the domain name www.bravenet.com is broken into levels.
www. bravenet. com
Every domain name must be assigned a set of "Name Servers". Name servers tell computers around the world what IP address a certain domain name is pointing to. If you do not assign the proper name servers to your domain name, computers will not know where to find the server that hosts your website.
If you purchase a domain name with your hosting provider, then the name servers for your domain name will probably be set automatically. If you purchase a domain name from one company and purchase hosting from another company, you will more than likely have to modify the name servers for your domain.You're now ready to be a proud owner of a domain name! Click here to get a domain name for as low as $8.95 a year!