Domain Names and How They Relate to the Internet
By Sveinung Skoglund

The Internet has been around for several years now, but it still is a source of great mystery and confusion for many people-even to those who have been using it on a regular basis for quite some time. Much of the confusion has to do with how the Internet is structured and how it is possible for each individual computer to gain access to all the information and content that is available on the World Wide Web.

While it is true that the Internet is indeed quite a complex web of computer systems linked all over the world and that an in-depth analysis of it is far beyond the scope of any article, there is way that it can be explained quite simply, and that is by comparing it to a forest. Think of each individual computer that is connected to the Internet as a single plant, shrub or tree in a forest and you would have a fairly accurate representation of how each separate computer system is tied in with each other.

As in the case of the forest, there is no central authority or leadership figure on the Internet that dominates above all the other linked systems. There is however a certain section that is the main branch upon which all the other connected systems stem from, and that is the domain.

A domain is simply the name given to a relatively small group of computer systems that are maintained by certain non-profit organizations. Called TLD or Top Level Domains, these systems are normally ascribed the now familiar suffixes.net,.com, and.org among others. These Top Level Domains are the root-or backbone if you will-of the entire Internet infrastructure and every other system can be traced back to it.

As you may have guessed, under these Top Level Domains are the Second Level Domains, which are more recognizable to the average Internet user. These are often mistakenly called "hosts" or "domains" when "sub-domain" would be a more accurate term. These Second Level Domains are further subdivided into the individual hosts or servers, which are tasked primarily with "hosting" data and other types of content and allowing users to access it over the Internet.

These myriad systems taken together-the Top Level Domains, the Second Level Domains and the various hosts and servers that are under them, along with all the necessary hardware and software equipment that allow the exchange of data and other content-are what makes up the extensive system of linked computers that we have come to know as the Internet.

Any specific web site will have an IP address associated with it. This is how it can be identified and subsequently reached by other computers on the Internet. Because these IP addresses are typically made up of a string of letters and numbers that are hard to memorize, a domain name is typically assigned to them which makes the process of identification much easier. Of course with the widespread practice of hot linking to a specific site, there are no longer many reasons to memorize a particular site's IP address.

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