What Are Domain Names?

A domain name is the name assigned to a website which is otherwise designated by a numerical code. Or in simpler words it is the IP address of the website which has been given a name for easy understanding and recognition. Domain names are often referred to as domains and domain name registrants are called domain owners.

A domain name provides symbolic representation in a manner of speaking. It gives recognizable names to mostly numerically addressed internet resources. As a rule, domain names are restricted to ASCII letters, case sensitive letters, digits through 0 to 9 and hyphen. There are some other restrictions in terms of name length and position of hyphens. The underscore character is frequently used to ensure that a domain name is not recognized as a host name.

Levels of domain names

Domain names are categorized into three distinctive levels, which are explained below:

Top level domains: - The domain names that consists of a list of small generic names and the two-character territory code names based on ISO-3166, come under the top level domain names. The top level domains are also referred as first level domains. Examples of some top level domain names are .biz, .com, .name, .asia, .cat, .coop, .arpa, .nato, .test and many more.

Second level domains: - Below the top level domain names, come the second level domain names that are directly placed to the left of .com, .net and other top level domain names. Second level domain names are usually created on the name of the brand, products and services. Example in abc.org , abc is the second level domain name.

Third level domains: - Third level domain names are written immediately to the left of a second level domain name.

Unconventional domain names

These days many unconventional domain names are being created due to the shortage of one word domain names. These new unconventional domain names can be used at the top level as a fundamental part of the heading of the website. Unconventional domain names are used to create unconventional email addresses. Some of the examples are blo.gs and del.icio.us.

Premium domain names

Premium domain names are a very important part of the business of domain name marketing. Premium domain names are usually short, memorable and contain keywords that can help a business get high rankings on the search engines. These domain names may also contain generic words and words with multiple meanings.

Benefits of having a domain name

There are many benefits of having a domain name some of which are:

Domain name creates an easy recall of your website

Helps you to build a list of contacts for your own capture pages

Gives the brand a true internet presence

Gives the business a real email address

Domain names are able to promote multiple products

Domain names give the business a prospective online investment

Domain names make the business easy to operate

It can be safely said that domain names form an integral part of the way internet business operates today.