What is a Domain Name?

A domain name is basically the name of your website such as google.com or wikipedia.org or whois.info. These are all domain names which are registered by official registrars with various domain name authorities.

The domain name that you select basically consists of two parts:

• Second level domain - The actual name of your website, e.g. mywebguider
• Top level domain (TLD) - The 2 or 3 letter suffix at the end of the domain name, e.g. .com, .org,

The following example illustrates the difference between a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) and a domain name:

• URL: http://www.example.net/index.html
• Domain name: www.example.net
• Registered domain name: example.net

Every domain name ends in a top-level domain (TLD) name, which is always either one of a small list of generic names (three or more characters), or a two-character territory code based on ISO-3166 (there are few exceptions and new codes are integrated case by case). Top-level domains are sometimes also called first-level domains.

Some of the generic top-level domain (gTLD) extensions are:

• .com - commercial business
• .info - information
• .net - Network organizations
• .biz - Business
• .gov - Government agencies
• .edu - Educational institutions
• .org - Organizations (nonprofit)
• .mil - Military
• .sg - Singapore
• .in - India

With more then 96 Million dot com domain names registered, it becomes even harder to find a good domain name that matches a product, service, or website concept that is not already taken.