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What is a domain name?
A domain name is the location of an entity on the Internet. “ofindo.com” is an example of a domain name. It can be used for many purposes including websites (e.g. http://www.ofindo.com) and email (e.g. xyz@ofindo.com).
Domain names were invented due to problems remembering long numbers called IP addresses such as 192.168.1.1. Before 1983, if you wanted to access something on the Internet, you would have had to remember the number of each entity on the Internet. This number is both difficult to remember and is not attractive for customers. Nowadays IP addresses are converted into Domain Names using DNS servers. If a domain name were a telephone number, DNS servers would be a telephone exchange.
However in 1983, the popularity and scope of the Internet was not envisaged and the system at the time, IP version 4 (or IPv4), did not allow enough addresses for the currently envisaged number of needed addresses estimated around 2012. Therefore IPv6 has been developed to allow for far more addresses, enough for the foreseeable future.
A domain name is often confused with a URL. The URL is the full address of a certain page or file on the Internet such as http://www.ofindo.com/domain-name/find-best-provider-for-registration.php whereas the domain name is simply “ofindo.com“.
Domain names were invented due to problems remembering long numbers called IP addresses such as 192.168.1.1. Before 1983, if you wanted to access something on the Internet, you would have had to remember the number of each entity on the Internet. This number is both difficult to remember and is not attractive for customers. Nowadays IP addresses are converted into Domain Names using DNS servers. If a domain name were a telephone number, DNS servers would be a telephone exchange.
However in 1983, the popularity and scope of the Internet was not envisaged and the system at the time, IP version 4 (or IPv4), did not allow enough addresses for the currently envisaged number of needed addresses estimated around 2012. Therefore IPv6 has been developed to allow for far more addresses, enough for the foreseeable future.
A domain name is often confused with a URL. The URL is the full address of a certain page or file on the Internet such as http://www.ofindo.com/domain-name/find-best-provider-for-registration.php whereas the domain name is simply “ofindo.com“.
What is a domain name composed of?
A domain name such as ofindo.com is basically composed of two parts:
There are, however, restrictions as to the characters allowed in each domain name. The maximum number of characters allowed in a domain name including the extension is 63. Every registrar allows the American Standard (ASCII) characters from a-z (not differentiating between upper and lower case), 0-9 and the hyphen “-“. Since 2005, some registries have started to use Internationalised Domain Names allowing registrants to register domain names using their own language’s script. For example, domain names with a .gr extension can contain Greek characters and those with a .cn can contain Chinese characters.
- The "ofindo" part of the domain name generally defines the organisation or entity and together with the top-level is called the second level domain name.
- “.com” is an example of a Top Level Domain (TLD) otherwise known as an extension which can be selected.
There are, however, restrictions as to the characters allowed in each domain name. The maximum number of characters allowed in a domain name including the extension is 63. Every registrar allows the American Standard (ASCII) characters from a-z (not differentiating between upper and lower case), 0-9 and the hyphen “-“. Since 2005, some registries have started to use Internationalised Domain Names allowing registrants to register domain names using their own language’s script. For example, domain names with a .gr extension can contain Greek characters and those with a .cn can contain Chinese characters.