With no domain name, websites are specified with an IP address. What is an IP address? It is an identifier utilized online to specify the placement of a webpage. Nevertheless, for people, an IP address, (stated in a numerical format), may be hard to recall. This is why domain names were developed. With a domain name, a person can find a webpage through more user-friendly words. And even though numbers can be a part of a domain name, numbers usually don’t make up the whole address, such as with an IP address.

In terms of format, domain names have different segments. The first section is known as the URL, (which means Uniform Resource Locator). The URL tells the browser what the domain name is being pointed to. This most likely will be ‘http’, which means the browser can expect to find a hypertext document.

The second section of the domain name will be “www,” which means “World Wide Web.” These letters let computers and humans know the site the domain name is pointing to is in fact on the Internet.

Next is the real domain name, which may be a combination of letters, numbers or words. A good domain name will be short, easy to remember and more importantly, search-engine friendly. To be honest, good webmasters are incined to focus more on a domain name’s consequences with SEO, (or Search Engine Optimization), than they do its originality. To achieve this they make sure to choose a domain name with a highly searched keyword.

The last portion of the domain name is called an extension. This tells people something about a website’s origins. For example, take .com, the most common domain name extension. It means ‘commercial’, and was originally intended for businesses. However, these days the extension is used by virtually everyone looking to establish a web presence. And for good premise, because most web surfers will think about .com before .org, .net, or .ws. Don’t think the other extensions can not become famous. Consider Wikipedia.org because it is an extremly popular website despite its .org extension.

To get a domain name, a person can either:
1) get one from a web hosting company, provided they offer that service
2) get one from a separate domain name company.
3) get one from Global Domains International (domain name and hosting plus business opportunity)