A Domain name is the physical address of any website. You can find the domain name of your website in the website’s URL.
So, the answer to your question is that the domain name of a website primarily sit in the URL.
A URL begins with the brand name or subdomain followed by the “domain name” and then by the domain extension or top-level domain.
For ex: When you look at the top of this webpage you’ll see the URL “https://pcheaven.in/website/where-does-the-domain-name-of-a-website-primarily-sit/“
In this https is the protocol, ‘pcheaven.in‘ is the domain name and ‘website/where-does-the-domain-name-of-a-website-primarily-sit‘ is the path to the specific page of our website.
A domain name also contains two parts-
- Website name
- Domain name extension
In our case ‘pcheaven’ is website’s name and ‘.in’ is the domain name extension.
Let’s understand in depth more about domain names.
What is a domain name?
In the simplest terms a domain name is just the address to your website.
Consider internet as a vast map full of avenues and streets and turns everywhere and think of your website as your house.
In order for anyone to find their way to your house they (even you) will need an address to reach the house.
In case of websites, this address is your domain name. Every website has an IP and it is just a seemingly random string of numbers.
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For example 66.134.299 and it’s not humanly possible to remember IP addresses of different websites, whenever they need to find something in the search engines.
So when you register and purchase a domain name it’s almost like saving your home address as home into your phone.
Domain name gives that IP address a simple and easy to remember name that anyone can type in and get to your website.
This is because it would be really difficult to remember a random string of numbers.
Working of domain names
In order to understand the ins and outs of how domain names work you need to know about the DNS aka domain name system.
This is a decentralized system that stores information about which domains are connected to which IP addresses.
When a user enters your domain name in their browser it then checks the DNS for their corresponding IP address and directs the visitor to the right page.
In this sense you can think of the DNS as a directory of the internet which sorts the data according to the users.
Why do we need domain names?
Domain name’s primary purpose is to act as your website’s address. Every computer including the server that hosts your website has an IP address made up of a string of numbers.
Without domain names users would have to enter your server’s IP address to access your site instead.
Domain names of your web address provides an easy to recall alternative to users so they can quickly enter to reach your content.
Types of domain names-
When we read domain names from left to right, the identifiers in them go from the most special to very general.
- Top-level domains TLD
- Country code Top level domains ccTLDs
- Generic Top level domains gTLD
- Second level domains
- Third level domains / Sub domains
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1. Top-level domains
At the highest level of the domain name system are top-level domains also known as TLDs. TLDs are part of the domain name that are to the right of the last dot.
Some of the examples of Top-level domain are .com, .org, .net etc
2. Country code Top level domains
These domains are used to distinguish between different countries or for different geographical locations.
For example .uk represents England, .us stands for United States and many more
3. Generic Top Level Domain
It is also a top level domain without country code. gTLDs are used for general purposes and may not necessarily be used only for commercial purpose.
Examples are .org, .net, .co etc,
4. Second Level Domain
In DNS hierarchy, these domains sit directly below the top level domain. They often represent the name of the company or brand.
As in facebook.com, Facebook is the 2nd level domain and .com is the TLD.
5. Third Level Domain
Third level domains also known as sub domains come exactly before second level domain.
With the help of this one can keep content separate from the main site and also will be able to distinguish between various departments or parts of the site.
To know more about domain name you can also read our article ‘What is domain name?‘
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Hope you enjoyed reading this article about Where does the domain name of a website primarily sit?
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