Learn all about the Different types of Domain Name
Domain Names are categorised into different tiers, with ‘top-level’ domain names typically relating to geographic entities which the user might want to be associated with – .CO.UK (United Kingdom), .IE (Ireland), .ES (Spain) etc, plus the well-known .COM, .ORG, .EDU etc.
Each of these top-level-domains is commonly referred to as a “TLD” (Top Level Domain).
Different types of Domain Name: Non-Geographical
Beyond that, we now have a whole array of new domains which have been created to meet market demand as the web becomes more popular and more crowded. New secondary-level domains include .LONDON and .SPORT for example.
Within each top-level domain, all of the domain names must be unique. For example there cannot be two websites with the domain name thewebputsimply.com. However there can be two distinct websites – one with the domain name thewebutsimply.com, and the second with thewebputsimply.co.uk.
Domain Name Servers
Domain Name Servers (DNS) are the server machines dedicated to mapping domain names to IP addresses. A DNS will accept requests from web users, programmes, and other name servers. When a new request arrives, the DNS server is able to do any one of four things with it:
- Determine the correct IP address to map to, and provide this in answer to the incoming request – if it already knows the IP address required,
- If it doesn’t already know the right IP address – contact another DNS server (or multiple) to try to find it,
- If it can’t find the right IP address itself or through it’s peer network of DNS servers – answer the request to say “I don’t know that address, but here’s where you can go to find out more…”,
- Or if the domain name is invalid or simply doesn’t exist it will return an error message to state as much.
Once a DNS has successfully resolved the Domain Name with the correct IP address, it will then fetch the website files hosted on the servers at that address.
