Without a domain, websites are specified by an IP address. An IP address is an identifier that is used by computers or humans to determine the location of a server or website. However, for humans, an IP address, which is written in a numerical form, can be difficult to read. This is why domain names were invented. With a domain name, a human can locate a web site through more user-friendly words or phrases. While a domain can include digits, they usually do not make up all of it, like what is seen with an IP address.

In terms of format, domain names have several parts. The first part of the domain is the protocol. The protocol lets the browser know what the domain name is going to point to. The protocol is often ‘http’, which means the browser can expect to locate a hypertext document.  In layman’s terms this means webpage. In the rare cases the URL is not ‘http’; it may be ‘ftp’ instead’, which means file transfer protocol. A webmaster would use ftp if they would like visitors to download files from their server.

The second part of the domain name will be the subdomain. An example is “www,” which stands for “World Wide Web.” If a web site consists of more than one server, the subdomain helps to identify the specific server to connect to.

The subdomain is followed by the actual domain name, which can be a combination of letters, numbers or phrases.  A good domain name will be memorable, short and most importantly, search-engine friendly. In fact, good webmasters tend to concentrate more on a domain name’s effectiveness with SEO, than they do on other factors. To do this, they make sure that they choose a domain name that has a widely searched word.

The final part of the domain name has what is known as an extension. This lets a person know more about the web site’s origins. For example, take .com, the most commonly used domain name extension. It stands for ‘commercial’, and was originally intended for organizations in that vein. However, the extension is now used by almost anyone looking to create a web site. And this is for good reason, since most web surfers will think about the .com before they would think about .org, .biz or .net. Yet, don’t think the other extensions can’t become memorable either. Consider Wikipedia.org which is a wildly popular website despite its .org extension.

Domain name extensions can also specify which country a web site is from. An example are country-based extensions such as .fr, (which stands for France), or .jp, (which stands for Japan). They can also be based around states, such as .ca, (which stands for California).  Both can serve as wonderful tools for localized Internet marketing.

To get a domain name, a person can either: 1) get one from their web hosting company, provided they offer that service or 2) get one from a separate domain name company. Price-wise things will vary with both options, though typically the cost will range from $6.50 to $35.