Internet domains are one of the most important elements in the structure of cyberspace that we have today. Without them, We can assure you that it would be much more difficult to use the web and navigate with the freedoms and facilities that we know.
Currently, just entering the name of a website is enough to make the corresponding request that will take the browser to its homepage. It wasn’t like that before, domains didn’t exist and to find a website you had to be much more skilled with a computer.
In this article you will know everything you need to know about web domains, so that you understand its real operation and thus also its tremendous importance to make things easier for us when browsing the Internet.
What is a domain and what is its purpose in the functioning of the Internet?
A web domain is the name that identifies a web page within the Internet in the domain name system or DNS.. The latter is a protocol that was created to replace the IP addresses of websites with names that are easier to remember and write, thus facilitating common user access to the network and humanizing it.
The domain also has the ability to unlink the portal from the IP address of the computer where the data is stored. Thanks to this, if you use a free hosting and want to scale to another payment company, you can do it with total freedom. Otherwise, we would be doomed to use the same web hosting forever.
How were websites identified before the existence of the DNS protocol?
The birth of the DNS protocol is older than the Internet we know today, and for this we must go back to the early years of this. At that time it was called ARPANET, and it was a small local network with a few computers interconnected with each other.
In addition, the users of the same, they were engineers and computer geniuses of the time who worked for the US Department of Defensesince the purpose of this was purely military.
The engineers used a system in which they could link to other computers on the network by knowing their IP addresses, so they had memorized them perfectly. However, they realized that this was inefficient, because As the network grew, it would be impossible to learn all the addresses to access each computer..
That’s why a couple of name engineers Paul Mockapetris and Jon Postel designed a system in which gave an IP address a unique name that would identify it within the network, in such a way that just by entering it, it could be connected with the corresponding equipment.
This system would be known as DNS, and at first it would be administered by the United States Department of Defense itself. At the time of its creation, the so-called domain extensions were also established, which were a way of indicating what the main use of the domain was..
At that time, the first 6 extensions that continue to be used today were established. These are:
- .Com: for domains of commercial use.
- .Net: for companies that provide internet services.
- .org: for organizations.
- .gov: for government entities.
- .One thousand: for Department of Defense portals.
- .Edu: for educational and similar services.
Anatomy of a domain What are the parts of a website name?
The anatomy of portal names is quite simple. A web domain has two parts that are:
The name is usually the most striking, since it is what we remember the most when looking for a website. While the extension indicates the utility of said domain within the network.
Although domain names are important within the structure of the Internet, it is the extensions that have a greater administrative weight in its operation. These are the ones that indicate to the computer what type of web it is entering.
In addition, these are what make a domain unique since they can have several extensions such as Amazon.com, Amazon.es or Amazon.eu, Once an extension is occupied in a domain name, it cannot be repeated, so it is impossible for there to be two websites called Amazon.com.
The latter makes it clear that it is the extensions that really make a domain unique and cannot be occupied by any other portal on the Internet.
Domain types and examples How are website addresses classified?
Domains are classified into three groups and these, once again, are determined by domain extensions.
Here we present each and every one of them:
generic
Generic domains are those of global use and that identify a website according to its usefulness. These are not linked to any type of territory or geographical area, and are generally used for commercial websites, organizations or the media. The best known are .com, .net, .org, .biz (for business portals), .info (information portal).
territorial
Territorial top-level domains are those that are linked to a specific geographical area., and indicate to the Internet that said portal is located in a certain country of the world. An example of these are all .es (Spain), .co (Colombia), .eu (European Union), .ve (Venezuela) or .mx (Mexico).
3rd level
Finally there are the third level domains, which are those that combine the concepts explained above. That is, they have a generic extension and a territorial one., which serve to indicate that an organization, business or store is located in a certain country. An example of a third-type domain would be the website of the Spanish Administration (Administration.gov.es) or portals such as moneymas.com.es and the like.
It should be noted that these domains have become obsolete, so there are very few websites that use this combination unless they are government departments or institutions.
Domain vs subdomain, how is each one different?
The term subdomain often causes confusion among users and some wonder if this is a type of domain, and the reality is that it is not at all.
A subdomain is used to identify a website that is part of the same brand or Internet domain, sold as a branch of this. It is usually written before the main domain and extension, and is used to segment content.
However, little by little these have been falling into disuse. In the past, if a company had a main website where it offered its services and wanted to create a blog of articlescreated a blog.empresa.com-style subdomain, in such a way that they could create a parallel website in which only the texts were shared.
The problem with subdomains is that they have certain behaviors that make them look like a separate domain, which has its own authority. which requires a whole new positioning job to be done.
That is why subfolders are currently used more, which are addresses that hang from the domain and indicate a section within the web, absorbing all the DA of the original domain, and making it easier to position new content on it.
*Note: Subdomains are currently only used for websites hosted by free content managers such as wordpress.com or blogspot.com.
Are URL and web domain the same? Main differences
Another issue that causes confusion is URLs, and it is often believed that they are the same as domain names, but the reality is that they have a much more complex operation. This is because they are not only used to identify a website, but for any document or file that is on the Internet.indicating your exact address.
URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator, and it does just that. Locate each and every one of the resources that are stored on the Internet. To do this, it interacts with various protocols. The most popular of these is HTTP, or Hypertext Transmission Protocol, which primarily identifies web pages.as well as FTP, which identifies downloadable documents.
The anatomy of a URL is much more complex than that of a web domain, since in fact, these contain the same domains in their structure.
That being said, we can identify the following parts:
- http: this would be the hypertext protocol identifier.
- WWW: resource address.
- Meanings: which is the name of the web where the file is.
- Extension: which would be the extension that identifies the type of domain.
After these four parts, comes what is known as the URL path, which indicates the exact location where a file is located on the web. For example, if you enter the sports section of an online newspaper with news about Rafa Nadal’s victory at Roland Garros, you will find a URL like this:
- Elmundo.es/deportes/tenis/nadal-wins-roland-garros.
The data that comes after the slash (/) indicates the exact path in which said article is located. In this case we have that the article “Nadal wins Roland Garros”is located in the section “tennis”, from the section of “sports” from the newspaper elmundo.es.
Why do I need hosting to host my website after buying the domain?
Many novice users in the world of web development wonder why it is necessary to hire a web hosting service to host our domain and internet portal, and the truth is that this is not true.
If you wish, there is nothing to prevent you from hosting your website on your own computer. The problem we run into doing this is that it’s a slightly demanding process.which will make the computer that we allocate be solely and exclusively for this, in addition to the fact that it must always be on, since if you turn it off, the server will not be accessible and therefore the web will be down.
Faced with this situation, the most convenient (but not mandatory) is to contract a hosting service, which is nothing more than paying for the rental of a computer in which the data of your website is hosted and remains online as long as possible. .
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