What is a domain name?

Domain names are part of the URLs for pages on the internet.  For example, http://www.qandas.com is the URL (Uniform Resource Locater) for this site, and ‘qandas.com’ is the domain name.  The suffix (the part coming after the dot) has meanings, as well.  Here are some of the most common:  gov (government), edu (education), com (commercial business), org (organizations, usually nonprofit), and net (network organizations).  Some countries also have their own suffixes (or top level domains) to unify their country’s domain names.

Domain names help humans manipulate their way through the internet; the IP addresses attached to the domain names help the spiders working with the search engines to find those web pages.  When you start your own webpage(s), you will need a domain name.  The first step includes checking to see if the domain name you want is available or not – you can begin by googling it, which will either bring up a website or let you know that the name you’ve chosen is free.  Be aware that often you can simply change the suffix and still use the domain name you prefer (but this can lead to confusion later on if you are using your website for business).