Everyone involved in creating or promoting websites comes across the concept of a domain. It is a universal term that no leading expert of the online world can do without. Let's talk about what a domain is.
A domain is the address of a website on the web, represented in the form of letters and numbers. It converts a hard-to-remember IP address into a form familiar to the user. Each name is unique - it is impossible to register identical sequences of characters. The maximum size of the combination is 63 characters. You can use letters, numbers, and hyphens in the name.
The combination may consist of letters of the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets. Names are registered in different domain zones.
Why domain names are needed
The term “domain” is often confused with the concept of a site. But it is not the same thing. A website is a specific web page on which content is placed. In fact, this is the content: articles, pictures, videos and other information. A domain is the unique address at which that site is located. The site can exist without a domain, but it will not be displayed on the network, and users will not find it. Domain names are needed in order to place the site on the Internet. With a domain, people will see your resource and can study the information presented on it.
What a domain name consists of
Domains are organized in a certain hierarchy. They are made up of parts that are called levels. These levels are separated by dots.
- Domains of the first level are the most extensive. Such names are also referred to as domain zones. This is a common name that indicates the geographic or thematic affiliation of the resource. It is displayed on the right side after the dot. Such domains are registered with the participation of ICANN, the authorized organization. There are geographic domains of the first level: .ru (Russia), .ua (Ukraine), .kz (Kazakhstan), .de (Germany), etc. There are also thematic domain zones: .photography, .edu, .finance, .money, .travel and others.
- Second-level domains or subdomains. Displayed on the left side before the dot. Such names can be bought and used by any person or company. A prerequisite for registration is that the user must come up with a unique sequence of letters and numbers.
- Subdomains of the third and subsequent levels. They are attached to the second-level name. The site owner can create many addresses based on the main name. Such addresses do not need to be bought: you pay for and renew only the second-level domain.
What a domain looks like
The site address is a sequence of characters separated by a dot. The domain zone is separated from additional subdomains. One name combines several levels. For example, Google services are hosted on the domain google.com. The entry is separated by a dot. This indicates that google is a second-level domain. At the same time, .com is the domain zone, that is, the top-level domain.
The page "google" cannot exist without binding to a specific domain zone such as .com. The address must necessarily look like this: google.com.
All information about domains of different levels is stored on the DNS server. The user acquires an address and registers it in the system before launching the site.
IDN and Punycode
A Punycode decoder is a service that allows you to create domain names in your native language. Such names are called Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), that is, domain names in national languages.
An IDN is stored in the format: xn--80ahnhodgl1a.xn--j1amh. For users, this combination is automatically converted by the browser into a readable record: подарунки.укр
The Punycode converter uses Latin characters from a to z, digits from 0 to 9 and the hyphen. A total of 37 characters are used for encoding.
WHOIS
WHOIS is a service for checking the owner of a domain. It allows you to find out who owns the address of the Internet site, who registered the domain name and which DNS servers the name points to. The service will help to assess the reliability of the resource, as well as to determine whether it has been under search engine sanctions. The check is done online.