In order for the internet to work, domains are essential. With out using domain name your website cannot be found easily. The domain name system (DNS) is used for converting human friendly names to IP addresses. A hostname or fully qualified domain name (FQDN), identifies a specific device within the DNS namespace, for example www.example.com identifies the device ‘www’ within the example.com domain.
The process of claiming a domain name within the public DNS infrastructure is called domain name registration. This process is very simple and costs next to nothing. If you want to run a website a domain name is an essential prerequisite. There are numerous levels to the domain name system. All internet registered domains stem from a top level domain. Nowadays there are many top-level domains, like:
- .com
- .net
- .co.uk
- .org
+ a lot more.
Second level domains exist directly under one a top level domain, for example, mydomain.com, in which ‘mydomain’ is this 2nd level domain.
Currently there are numerous domain name extensions readily available for use. During the early days of the internet, there were only a few such as .com, .net, .org, etc. Nonetheless, due to the boom in internet sites being developed over the years, many more domain extensions have become available, such as .tv, .me, etc.
There is a specific naming convention used for all domain names without exception. A domain name has the following restrictions:
- Can include hyphens (-)
- Maximum 255 characters in total.
- Must use ASCII letters (A-Z and 0 to 9)
Every level of the domain is divided by a period (.) making a domain tree.
Most domains can be registered on a yearly cycle, but it’s advised that you register your domains for as many years as you can manage upfront. However, some domain extensions do not allow you to register on a yearly basis and demand that you pay for a minimum of two years registration upfront. The.co.uk domain name extension is one such example of this.
Computing devices use IP addresses, such a 192.168.0.1 to exchange data with each other, however, remembering these addresses is hard for humans, so the Domain Naming System (DNS) converts human friendly names to IP addresses. There is another service for changing IP addresses to domain names, called reverse DNS (rDNS). The system is used to match IP addresses to domain names, i.e. the opposite of DNS.