What's In A [Domain] Name?
A domain name is part of the address that users type in to their browsers to access your website. Examples of a domain name are "example.com", "example.org", "example.net", etc. Ours is wisenterprises.com. Domains are used by every website you visit to replace the IP address.
Protocol
"http://", which is at the beginning of most websites you will visit, is the protocol that is being used by the browser to translate the webpage from code to what you see it as. "http" stands for hypertext transfer protocol. Other protocols, (which you will probably not use with your domains), are "ftp" (file transfer protocol), "nntp", (network news transfer protocol), and "SMTP", which is used for outgoing email. They're technically not part of your domain name even though they appear in the browser's address bar.
Web Server Computer Name
After the protocol, (http in our case), is the web server computer name. For most webpages this is "www". "www" stands for World Wide Web. This is also technically not part of the domain name.
There is a difference between the internet and the "web". The web is part of the internet, and could not exist without it. The other protocols, (ftp, nntp, etc), are also part of the internet. Once you have your own domain you may be able to have your own sub-domains such as blog.example.com or forum.example.com or whatever you want, but we will talk about that later.
Name Of The Domain
Here's where your creativity will come in handy. This is where you have the most control. The name can be anything you want, (using letters, numerals, and hyphens), as long as somebody else hasn't registered it first.
Top-level Domains
The last part of a domain, which comes after the period trailing the actual name, is called the top-level domain name, or TLD. Examples of a TLD are .com, .org, .net, .edu, .info, .mobi, .ws, etc. The .com's are generally supposed to be for companies, .org's for non-profit organizations, .edu is for academic organizations, .mobi is for sites specifically designed for viewing and access on mobile devices, .gov is for government agency websites. There are also "country code" TLDs such as .au for Australian websites, .de for German websites, and .uk for websites from the United Kingdom.
When you register your own domains you will choose the name and the TLD.
Register A Domain Name Now
If you're ready to register one now and want to skip all the informational pages, please go to our page about where to register a domain name. Domains are disappearing quickly, so don't wait too long!
