Website Design, Web Development Blog
Domains
About Domain Names – in a nutshell
Mar 31st
A domain name is the address of a website. For example, www.google.com is a domain name and the entire website address – http://www.google.com is called the Uniform Resource Locator (URL).
Top-Level Domains
The “extension” of a domain name is called the Top-Level domain (TLD). So in www.google.com, .com is the TLD. There are 3 types of TLDs – generic top-level domains (gTLD), country code top-level domains (ccTLD) and infrastructure top-level domains.
gTLD
Generic top-level domains are the most popular of all domains. Some of the gTLDs are:
- .com – originally intended for use by commercial organizations
- .net – originally intended for use by Internet related sites
- .org – originally intended for use by non-profit organizations
- .biz – for use by businesses
- .info
ccTLD
The country code top-level domains also have the 2 letter country code that is used to designate a country. For example, www.airtel.in is a ccTLD and .in represents India. A list of all countries ccTLD can be found at the IANA Website (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority).
The .IN ccTLD allocation is overseen by a Government of India appointed organization – INRegistry, operated under the authority of National Internet eXchange of India (NIXI). The registration of popular ccTLDs like .IN, .CO.IN, .NET.IN is provided by many organizations. However, to register .GOV.IN, .MIL.IN is exclusively registered by National Informatics Centre (NIC). The ccTLDs .AC.IN, .EDU.IN and .RES.IN is registered exclusively by ERNET.
Infrastructure top-level domains
Infrastructure top-level domains is exclusively used for Internet infrastructure purposes such as in-addr.arpa for IPv4 and ip6.arpa for IPv6 reverse DNS resolution, uri.arpa and urn.arpa for the Dynamic Delegation Discovery System, and e164.arpa for telephone number mapping based on NAPTR DNS records.
Reserved domains
As per the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force), the following 4 top-level domain names are reserved and cannot occur in production networks within the global domain name system.
- example – reserved for use in examples
- invalid – reserved for use in invalid domain names
- localhost – reserved for use in local computers
- test – reserved for use in tests
Domain Name formats
- domain names must be at least 2 characters long
- domain names cannot be more than 63 characters long, excluding the domain extension
- domain names can only have alphabets, numbers and hyphen (-). They cannot have spaces, underscore, or any other symbol
- domain names that are a combination of alphabets and numbers (alphanumeric) are acceptable. For example, www.theysing2me.com is a valid domain name
- domain names cannot start and end with a hyphen
- domain names are not case-sensitive, i.e., echopx.com is the same as EchoPx.com
IP Addresses
Along with the domain name, each website also has an Internet Protocol (IP) address. IP addresses are what computers use to connect over the internet. Each computer on the internet has an IP address. The IP address can by a static IP or a dynamic IP. Internet Servers use static IP and computers that you use for connecting to the internet uses dynamic IP. You can find your from www.whatsmyip.org.
IP addresses are regulated by Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). 209.191.93.53 is the IP addresses of Yahoo.com (type the IP 209.191.93.53 in your browser). When you type a website address in your browser’s address bar, the computer searches the Domain Name System (DNS) which is maintained by ICANN. The domain name is then translated into the corresponding IP address and the computer connects to the website.
Subdomains
A subdomain is a subset of a larger domain name. For example, blog.echopx.com is a subdomain of echopx.com. Even a in domain address like www.example.com, www is the subdomain of example.com. The subdomain www is also called canonical domain names.
Subdomains are usually used either for load balancing or for organizing sites. Websites that have very high traffic, use load balancing techniques to redirect visitors to one of their subdomains like www1.example.com. Others use subdomains to organize their website information. For example, echopx.com is the corporate website, where as blog.echopx.com is used for blogs only and domains.echopx.com is used for online domain name registration.
Registering Domain Names
A domain name is registered by a registrar. The registrars are appointed by ICANN. All domain names are registered with the ICANN registry.
A domain name is registered for a specified period of time, i.e., from 1 year up to a maximum of 10 years at a time. The domain name registration fee is usually charged on an yearly basis. You can continually use the domain name by renewing it within the specified time limit. If you do not renew it within the specified time, it will expire and will be available for anyone for registration.
Domain name expiry, grace period, retrieval
Whenever a particular domain name is not renewed till the expiry date, it would slip into the Renewal Grace Period. During this period, any website and mails associated with the domain name would become non-functional. Renewal Grace Period are different depending upon the domain name extensions. For example, .com, .net, .org, .biz, and .info have 40 days renewal grace period, where as, .in has only 15 days. A .eu domain name does not have any grace period. If you do not renew the domain name even in the Renewal Grace Period, then the domain name would be deleted and the domain name will go into Redemption Grace Period (provided there is no back-order for this domain name) and you would get a chance to redeem it.
Redeeming a domain name is expensive, time consuming and generally a manual process. It can take up to 5 working days to redeem a domain name. The Redemption Grace Period is generally of 30 days after the domain name is deleted and during this period, only the current Registrar of the domain name can redeem the domain name. If the domain name is not Redeemed during this period, then it would move to the Pending Delete period for 5 days. In this status, the domain name can not be Redeemed and after this period, the domain name would be available for fresh Registration.
Domain pointing
During the domain name registration process you will be asked where you want the domain name to “point”. This is the IP address of the server where your web site will be located and there should be a primary and secondary server. You can obtain this information from your web hosting company. There may also be a listing for other optional servers. The registrar may provide the IP addresses of at least two delegated name servers on their site. You can change this if you have your own. It can also be changed at any time later if you change servers. It can take 48-72 hours for your domain name to be set-up and available on the web.
Summary
While a domain name is nothing more than an alias for the IP address, it is increasingly becoming a very important tool in marketing your website. Being aware of what it is and how to keep it secure is crucial. Read our earlier article on how to protect your domain name. If you have any specific questions / comments, do post it here.
Protect your Domain Name
Nov 12th
Very often we get clients who want to transfer their domain name from their existing registrar (or their resellers) to a new registrar. In most of the cases, the domain transfer process gets contentious with their existing domain resellers. As it turns out, it happens mainly because the client is not the “registered” owner of the domain name.
Many a times, a domain name registration service provider (domain reseller) approaches a client offering to register their domain name. The unsuspecting client just asks the domain reseller to register it on their behalf and make the payment outright. However, when the domain reseller is registering the domain name, the domain resellers provide their contact details and email address instead of the client’s contact details & email id. Hence, the domain reseller becomes the official owner of the domain name. A simple whois search will reveal the actual owner of the domain name. Try a whois search at http://www.internic.net/whois.html.
So, how do you ensure that you are the registered owner of your domain name? How do you protect your domain name?
- Be sure to get your own domain name control panel – Most registrars offer password protected interfaces to users to manage their domain names. So, while buying your domain name, insist on getting a domain name control panel. Set your own password and use a complex, hard to guess password.
- Ensure your registrant details are correct – Each domain name has the following details entered in the InterNIC’s WHOIS information database – administrative contact, billing contact and technical contact. Each of these contact have details like person name, organization name, address (street, city, state, country, postal code), phone, fax and email address. Ideally, you can have all of them – administrative, billing and technical contact details with your details. Even if a domain name reseller has registered the domain for you, do a WHOIS search for your domain name and it will reveal the contact details. If it is not in your name, insist with your domain reseller to change it.
- Use a domain lock – Most domain registrars provide a domain lock that can prevent a domain name from being transferred without your knowledge. Typically, you can set the lock / unlock from within your domain name control panel.
- Use a privacy protect – Most domain registrars provide Privacy Protect service. With the privacy protect service on, you can hide the details of the actual owner of the domain name shown through a whois search. It instead points all the contact details to a single address & email that is provided by the registrar. If your domain name reseller has put a privacy protect, ask him to remove it, so that you can verify the actual registrant details and you can yourself turn on the privacy protect from within your domain name control panel.
- Get a hard copy bill / invoice from your service provider – Just in case you need it, it is always prudent to insist on a hard copy bill / invoice from your domain name service provider. In times of need, it can prove as your legal proof for purchase of the domain name. Do not forget to ensure that the domain name is spelt correctly (along with the TLD or the extension like .com or .in) and the period of domain name registration (the start date and end date).
- Stay on top of your domain name renewals – Most of the times, domain name registrants lose control of their domain names through neglect or carelessness. It is important that you renew your domain name within the domain registrar specified timeframe. Remember – a domain name is yours only as long as you have paid for the said period. After a domain name has expired, it is up for grabs for anyone in the world.
- Use domain monitor – There are many free domain monitor that send you an email, the moment there is any change to the registration details. DomainTools offers a free domain monitor service.
Echo Px provides domain name registration service with your own control panel, free domain lock, free privacy protect and auto-reminder service for domain renewals (visit our domain name store). Moreover, we have worked with many clients who have had their domain names “hijacked” and helped them get their the domain names “released”. If you have such issues, post it in the comments.
Interesting Domain Name Facts
Nov 8th
“What’s in a name? That we call rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
Shakespeare famously wrote in Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2). More so, what’s in a domain name? Googling around threw up so many interesting domain name facts. I may not be able to list all, but the most interesting are:
- .com is the leading registered TLD (top level domain) with 83,085,276 domains followed by .net with 12,531,679. The others that follow are .org (7,857,092), .info (5,350,434), .biz (2,014,322), and .us (1,632,469) – stats as of 06-Nov-2009
- While .info is the 4th largest TLD, 33% of it are operated by Germans
- United States accounts for 68,958,024 of all registered domain names followed by Germany with 6,091,311. While China is placed 5th with 3,484,435 registered domain names, India is ranked 15th with 542,246 domain names – stats as of 02-Nov-2009
- Speaking of rarity, most of the great .com domain names have been taken up, especially, the 2 & 3 letter domain names which were all registered by 1997. Right now, all 2 & 3 letter domain names with .net, .org, .info, .biz and .us are also taken
- Registered on 15-Mar-1985, Symbolics.com is the oldest domain name. Followed by BBN.com on 24-Apr-1985 and Think.com on 24-May-1985
- Xerox.com was registered on 09-Jan-1986, Sri.com on 17-Jan-1986, HP.com on 03-Mar-1986, IBM.com on 19-Mar-1986, Sun.com on 19-Mar-1986, Intel.com on 25-Mar-1986 and GE.com on 05-Aug-1986
- The most expensive domain name is Sex.com at a whopping $14 millions, followed by Fund.com ($9,999,950 – sold in 2008), Porn.com ($9,500,000 – sold in 2007), Business.com ($7,500,000 – sold in 1999), Diamonds.com ($7,500,000), Beer.com ($7,000,000), AsSeenOnTV.com ($5,100,000 – sold in 2000), Korea.com ($5,000,000), Casino.com ($5,000,000), SEO.com ($5,000,000). The list is endless.
- The longest domain (at present) is Thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlonglast.com
- Airtel is one of the largest telecommunication company in Asia. Vodafone is a close competitor to Airtel in India. Airtel.com is registered. However, when you open www.airtel.com, you will be redirected to Vodafone. Airtel.com is registered by Vodafone
So what are you waiting for? Go. Grab your domain name before any one else does. To add to it, there are great discounts on domain names right now. Go to Echo Px Domain Names Store and buy it online.
.IN domains @ Rs.280 – Over 60% Off!
Nov 5th
Register your domains with over 60% discount on .IN and Third Level .IN Domains. You can now avail of New Registrations on .IN and Third Level .IN @ Rs.280 only. So hurry and make the most of the best prices in the industry before the 29th of January, 2010.
Note:
- This Promo is applicable to the first year of Registration only.
- Renewals and Transfer-Ins will not attract this Promo Pricing.
- There are no restrictions on the number of Domains that can be Registered during this period.
- The Promo Ends on the 29th of January, 2010.
Get started, buy online at Echo Px Domain Names Store.
