What is a domain name?
Similar to how your house address indicates where you live in the world, a domain name indicates where your computer's location is on the Internet. Organizations that do business over the Internet want domain names (addresses) that are easy to remember and that are closely related to their company's trademark, so that customers can locate their Web site very easily. The actual domain name is a simplified, easier to read translation of an IP (Internet Protocol) address. The Internet is composed of a vast number of interconnected computers. Each of these computers is assigned a numeric value of the form XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX (for example, 192.168.1.1 ). This numeric value is called an IP address. If each computer on the Internet were identifiable only through its IP address, people would have a lot of difficulty when trying to locate each other and having to memorize each other's addresses. Domain names simplify IP addresses into an easy to remember combination of words and numbers.
