Domain name is the unique name that you choose
for your web site. Web sites in the World Wide Web have their names and are
identified by the domain names that correspond with numeric IP address.
By the following example we will illustrate the
difference between URL and domain name:
URL: http://www.something.com/index.html
Domain name: www.something.com
Registered domain name: something.com
A complete domain name consisting of a host,
the second-level domain, and the top-level domain is called FQDN (fully
qualified domain name). For example, www.something is a FQDN, where www is the
host; something is the second-level domain; and .com is the top-level domain.
A top-level domain (TLD) is the last
part of an Internet domain name; that is, the letters that follow the final dot
of any domain name. For example, in the domain name www.website.com, the
top-level domain is .com (or COM, as domain names are not case-sensitive).
There are several types of domain names:
gTLD (generic top level domains) such as .com,
.net, .org, .name and others
ccTLD (country
code top-level domains) also called as regional domain names, for example: .fr,
.it, .de, .eu, .nl, .be, .ru and others.
The company that is registering the domain
names is called registrar, the person who registers domain name is called
registrant.
When you register domain name it is recommended
that you pay attention on the actual registrant of your domain name as some
companies register domains on their names.
Domain name is always registered for a definite
period; it is called domain name registration period
For most of domain names the minimal
registration period is one year
Though for some domains (for example .uk,
.mobi, .us) the minimal registration period is 2 years.
The date when domain name was registered is
called registration date
Depending on the registration period, the
domain name will have expiration date
Example: domain name was registered on 1st
of April 2006
It was registered for 1 year
Thus domain name expiration date will be 1st
of April 2007
It is always recommended that customers keep in
mind their domain name expiration date and renew domain before domain expires
in order to exclude any sort of downtime