Some
of the most mysterious features of the Internet are domain names and
URLs. Many people recognize that you have to know a website’s “address”
in order to connect with the site, but where these addresses come from
and how to obtain one is a lot less understood. Unfortunately, the term
“domain” is not simple to understand. If you look in Wikipedia, there
are dozens of different uses and meanings for the term in mathematics,
science, general use and information technology. See
Wikipedia:Domain. However, in the context of the Internet, the term “
domain name”
has a more specific meaning. A domain name is a string of letters that
defines a section of the Internet, more specifically a realm of
administrative autonomy, authority or control. See
Wikipedia:Domain name. In common use, a domain name can be thought of as the address of a website.
Now, if I carry that idea of an address one step further, I come to the term “URL” which stands for
Uniform Resource Locator.
The URL is a way of expressing the address of a website or other
location on the Internet by combining the domain name with a file path
syntax. OK, I told you this was complicated. But I am certain I can sort
it all out for you. However, bear in mind that I am leaving out a lot
of complicated detail. If you want more information, follow the links in
this post. Here is an example of a web address (the address for
FamilySearch Products):
https://familysearch.org/products/
If I were to generalize that address into its syntax (basic form) it would look like this:
scheme://domain:port/path?query_string#fragment_id
Before I go too far, I should mention that URLs need to be exactly
copied in order to work. Missing even one letter or adding one letter
may take you to an completely different website or not work at all.
The first part of the address, the “https:” part is the scheme or
protocol. It is the top level of the naming structure, sort-of like
giving the country first for your home address. There are other top
level designators, but none of them are in general use (for example,
gopher, wais and ftp) The two slashes (//) are separators telling the
Internet that what follows is the domain name. In my example, the domain
name is “familysearch.org.” The domain name can also be a numerical
address called an IP address as in Internet Protocol. The part of the
address above that refers specifically to the TechTips site, is the last
part in slashes. This is the file path to TechTips and shows that the
TechTips site is really part of the website with the domain name of
familysearch.org.
That brings me back to domain names. Generally, domain names are
ideally designed to be easy to remember. The domain name represents an
individual host computer on the Internet. Domain names are often
referred to simply as
domains and domain name registrants are frequently referred to as
domain owners,
although domain name registration with a registrar does not confer any
legal ownership of the domain name, only an exclusive right of use. See
Wikipedia:Domain name.
Since domain names live within the URL, they are further subdivided or
organized by a level designation. The top level of the domain name is
indicated by the top-level domain (TLD) on every domain name, such as
.com, .gov, .org and so forth.
Now let’s suppose that you want to start your own website. To do so,
you would need to have a computer hooked up to the Internet that allowed
other users on the Internet to access that computer. This type of
computer is called a “
server.”
In the old days, a server would usually be a single computer, however,
today, a single URL could actually be connected to dozens or even
hundreds of servers running together. Fortunately, you do not have to do
all this yourself, you can rent space on a commercial server and use
your own address or URL. So, the first step in setting up your own
website is to decide on a name that will be incorporated into the URL.
You want to have a name that is memorable and short and that can be
identified with your business. You also want a name that will not be
confused with any potential competitors for your product or service. If
you are making a family history website, you might want to include your
main family surname as part of the domain name.
To use a specific domain name, the name has be registered on the
Internet. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of commercial web
server providers around the world. One of the largest is a company
called
bluehost.com. Another well-known server company is
godaddy.com.
For a relatively small fee, you can register a domain name (sometimes
for free) and rent space on their server. Use of the commercial server
is sometimes transparent. That means that your URL does not indicate
which server company you are using. To contrast that, most blogs use a
URL that shows the hosting server, for example my blog at
http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com. The designation “blogspot” shows
that the hosting server is part of Google’s Blogger program and hosted
on their servers.
After you have a domain name and a hosting server, you are ready to
start building your website. Of course, that is a whole different topic
and goes to a new level of complication. But if you choose to start a
blog or other type of website, it may be quite simple and take only a
few minutes to begin using your new blog.
