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Introduction to Web Development

Domain Essentials

Table of contents

What is a domain?

Think of a domain as the address for a house, but on the internet. When you want to visit a friend, you type their home address into your GPS or tell the delivery person where to go. Similarly, a domain is like the address for a website. It’s a name that people can easily remember and type into their web browsers to find and visit a specific website.

 

For example, if “www.example.com” is the domain, it’s like the address for the website named “Example.” So, a domain is a friendly and easy-to-remember way of finding and accessing websites on the vast neighbourhood of the internet.

components of a domain

Top-Level Domain (TLD)

The TLD is the last part of the domain, indicating the domain’s purpose or origin. Common TLDs include “.com,” “.org,” “.net,” and country code TLDs like “.in” for the India.

Second-Level Domain (SLD)

The SLD is the main part of the domain, located directly to the left of the TLD. In “example.com,” “example” is the second-level domain

Domain Name

The complete domain name is the combination of the second-level domain and the top-level domain. In “example.com,” “example” is the domain name, and “.com” is the TLD

Subdomain

A subdomain is an additional part of the main domain that is used to organise and navigate to different sections of a website. For example, in “blog.example.com,” “blog” is a subdomain.

Protocol Identifier

The protocol identifier, such as “http://” or “https://,” is not technically part of the domain but is often included in URLs to specify the protocol used for communication.

Here's an example breakdown

Complete Domain: “https://blogs.example.com”
Subdomain: “blogs”
Second-Level Domain: “example”
Top-Level Domain: “.com”

Protocol Identifier: https

It’s important to note that the combination of the second-level domain and the top-level domain uniquely identifies a website on the internet. Domain names are registered through domain registrars, and the Domain Name System (DNS) is responsible for translating human-readable domain names into IP addresses, allowing computers to locate and connect to websites.