On the Internet, a domain is a network address. This is similar to your home's address used by the postal system. The mailman can deliver our mail because we have a unique address such as 2275 Beverly Lane - Clearwater, FL 33764.
Note: some words below are linked (blue, underlined text) to our Basic Internet Dictionary. To see the meaning of these words, just click on the word. To return to this page, just click your BACK button at the top.
On the Web, each site has its own unique address also, so that Web servers can find it. These domains are also referred to as "Dot.Coms". Our domain here is cheap-domains-registration.com.
A domain is also part of (and often confused with) the URL.
URL: (Uniform Resource Locator) is the address of a file (or "resource") on the Internet.
Using the World Wide Web's protocol, known as HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), the resource can be an HTML page (like the one you're reading), an image file, a program, or any other file supported by HTTP.
The URL contains:
1. the name of the protocol required to access the resource,
2. a domain name that identifies a specific computer on the Internet, and
3. a description of a file location on that computer.
Each of the above 3 parts is separated by a / (forward slash). Notice that after #1, the protocal type, there are two forward slashes. On the Web, an example of a URL is:
http://www.profitgate.net/internet-basics.html
which describes a Web page to be accessed with an http (Web browser application) that is located on a computer named www.profitgate.net. The main directory there contains the specific file internet-basics.html. By adding forward slashes ( / ), sub-directories can be included in an address.
A URL can be used for any Web page, not just a home page, nor individual file.
