When starting up a website there is a couple of basics that you cannot avoid, picking up and registering a domain name for example, is a must-do for every website owners. While it seems straight forward to select and purchase a domain name, there are quite a few fundamentals that you must know before making any decision.

In this article, I’m going to share with you a few frequent asked questions about domain names and I hope it will helps you to make better judgment.

Domain Name vs Web Hosting

A domain name is not a web hosting. Newbies often mix things up between domain names and hosting, these are two different things. A web hosting is where you get to store your data online; whereas a domain name is the ‘address’ of these data.

Domain Name vs Top Level Domain

All domain names end with a Top Level Domain (TLD), which consists of short set of letters. Take this website for example (WebHostingSecretRevealed.com), WebHostingSecretRevealed is the domain name whereas the ‘.com’ is the TLD. .net, .info, .org, .edu, and .biz are some of the common seen Top Level Domain.

Besides these generic TLDs, there is also another type of Top Level Domain that is normally known as the Country Code Top Level Domain (ccTLD). ccTLDs are meant to indicate a website’s location; for example website ends with .co.jp indicates that the site is based in Japan. Registration of ccTLDs is restricted for the citizens of the corresponding country; and the activities with such domains website are ruled by local regulations and cyber laws.

Subdomain vs Addon Domain

An addon domain refers to the additional domain name to be hosted in a hosting account; on the other hand, a subdomain refers to the secondary domain that is created on top of a ‘parent domain’.

Example: uk.yahoo.com, uk is the subdomain (with yahoo.com as the parent); if flickr.com and yahoo.com is hosted on the same hosting account, then flickr.com is the addon domain. Note that creating a subdomain is totally free of charge, while for addon domain you’ll need to pay just like when you are registering your primary domain.

How domain name works?

When the user requests a connection to your domain, Domain Name System (DNS) servers will ‘communicate’ with the corresponding registry for the requested domain; the registry then responds by informing which name servers (address of your web host) this domain is registered with; the request then goes to the name servers to obtain the actual IP address of the requested domain; the user then establishes connection (via web browser) with the said IP address.

Long story short, a domain name, with the help of DNS, tells the location of your website.

About Eranet
Todaynic.com International Limited(Eranet.com) was incorporated in Hong Kong in 2005, directly under Todaynic.com, Inc. which was established in 2000. As one of the first ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), Verisign, HKDNR, and CNNIC (The China Internet Network Information Center) accredited registrars, Eranet is also a leading provider of services in domain name registration and web hosting.

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