Domain: what is it and why

The concept of domain is faced by everyone who deals with the field of promotion, website development, etc. This is a universal term that no leading specialist in the online world can do without. Let's talk about what a domain is.

A domain is the address of a website on the network, presented in the form of letters and numbers. It converts a hard-to-remember IP address into a familiar view. Each name is unique - you cannot register identical sequences of characters. The maximum size of the combination is 63 characters. You can use letters, numbers, and dashes in the name.

The combination may consist of letters of the Latin and Cyrillic alphabet. Different items have different coverage areas.

Why domain names are needed

The word domain is often confused with the concept of a site. But this is not the same thing. A site is a specific web page that hosts content. In fact, this is the content: articles, pictures, videos and other information. Domain - a unique address on which this site is located. A site may exist without a domain, but only on the network it will not be displayed, and users will not find it. Domain names are needed in order to host a site on the Internet. With it, people will see your resource and will be able to study the information presented on it.

What a domain name consists of

Domains are organized with a specific hierarchy. They consist of parts called levels. These levels are highlighted with dots.

1. First-level domains are the largest. Such names are also referred to as domain zones. This is a common name indicating the territorial and thematic affiliation of the resource. It is displayed on the right side after the dot. Registration of such a domain takes place with the participation of an authorized organization ICANN. Geographic domains of the first level are distinguished: .ru (Russia), .ua (Ukraine), .kz (Kazakhstan), .de (Germany), etc. There are also thematic domain zones: .photography, .edu, .finance, .money, .travel and others.
2. Second-level domains or subdomains. Displayed from the left to the point. Such names can be bought and used by any person or company. A prerequisite for registration - the user must come up with a unique sequence of letters and numbers.
3. Subdomains of the third and subsequent levels. They are assigned to the name of the second category. The site owner can create a large number of addresses based on the main name. Such addresses do not need to be bought. Pay and renew only need a second-level service.

What does a domain look like

A site address is a sequence of characters separated by a period. The domain zone is separated from additional subdomains. One name combines several levels. For example, Google services are stored on google.ru domain. The record is separated by a dot. This suggests that google is a subdomain. At the same time, .com is the coverage area, that is, the top-level domain.

The google page cannot exist without binding to a specific .ru domain zone. The address must look like this: google.com.

All information about domains of different levels is stored on the DNS server. The user acquires the address and before starting it registers it in the system.

IDN and Punycode

Punycode decoder is a service that allows you to create domain names in your native language. Such names are called Internationalized Domain Names, abbreviated as IDN, that is, Domain Names in National Languages.

IDN is stored in the format: xn - 80ahnhodgl1a.xn - j1amh. For users, this combination is automatically converted by the browser into an adequate entry:

Punycode converter uses Latin characters from a to z, digits from 0 to 9 and a hyphen when working. A total of 37 characters are used for encoding.

Whois

Whois - a service for checking the domain owner. Allows you to find out who owns the address of the Internet site, who registered the domain name and which DNS servers the name is directed to. The service will help to identify the reliability of the resource, as well as to establish whether it was under the sanctions of search engines. Verification is carried out online.