[Er, this may be too verbose and/or detailed. Sorry!]
Think of domain names as signposts and web space as a physical location.
All of the Internet is housed on millions of servers all over the world. Each of these servers has what are called IP ranges, which can be divided up into individual IP addresses, usually associated with individual sites. The IP address functions just like a physical address -- it tells all the other computers where that particular site is. When you buy webspace, you'll get assigned an IP address from your webhost. This will be the address for your website. You could actually surf the entire internet using only IP addresses, if you could remember them all.
With me so far? :)
Domain names came into existence because it was too hard to remember hundreds of IP addresses. In essence, it's a list. When you type in a URL in your browser, it sends the information to a server called a name server, and that URL gets checked against a list of domain names and IP addresses. When it finds the IP address that matches whatever domain name you typed in, it redirects you to the right IP address and, volia, the website comes up.
There are tons of companies that sell domain names, but there is one "master" list (called the DNS list). When you buy a domain name, an entry gets inserted into that list with your information. Once it's in the list, it's not possible to create another entry for the same domain name.
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Date: 2006-02-21 06:50 pm (UTC)Think of domain names as signposts and web space as a physical location.
All of the Internet is housed on millions of servers all over the world. Each of these servers has what are called IP ranges, which can be divided up into individual IP addresses, usually associated with individual sites. The IP address functions just like a physical address -- it tells all the other computers where that particular site is. When you buy webspace, you'll get assigned an IP address from your webhost. This will be the address for your website. You could actually surf the entire internet using only IP addresses, if you could remember them all.
With me so far? :)
Domain names came into existence because it was too hard to remember hundreds of IP addresses. In essence, it's a list. When you type in a URL in your browser, it sends the information to a server called a name server, and that URL gets checked against a list of domain names and IP addresses. When it finds the IP address that matches whatever domain name you typed in, it redirects you to the right IP address and, volia, the website comes up.
There are tons of companies that sell domain names, but there is one "master" list (called the DNS list). When you buy a domain name, an entry gets inserted into that list with your information. Once it's in the list, it's not possible to create another entry for the same domain name.