Domain Names

The Domain Name System – An Overview

Domain name system

About IP Addresses

An IP address is an address that uniquely identifies a website. The IP address consists of four numbers, such as 123.49.12.83. The concept of IP addresses is similar to that of phone numbers. Each web server has a different IP address that allows computers on the Internet to find the web server. IP addresses assigned to each ISP by an international organisation. When you sign up for web hosting, your ISP will assign an IP address to your website.

Step 1 – Request the IP Address

Because IP addresses are difficult to remember, the domain name system was developed. A domain name looks like www.acme.com. When you navigate to a website using a domain name, the web browser first needs to find out the IP address of the site. This process is similar to looking up a phone book when you know a person’s name, but not his phone number.

The browser requests the IP address of the web site that is to be visited from the ISP’s domain name server (DSN). If the ISP’s DNS doesn’t have a record of the website, or if the record has expired, it checks with a public root DNS. It then returns the IP address of the website to the browser.

Step 2 – Connect to the Website

Once the browser knows the IP address of the website to be visited, it can establish a connection. It sends through a request to the server for the content of a particular file to be delivered. That content is then rendered by the web browser and shown on the screen.

Why Do I Need a Domain Name?

A domain name is the address of your business. A good domain name is vital for your business. Here are some reasons why you need a good domain name:

The domain name you choose reflects your image. On the Internet, people cannot differentiate between a large and a small company.
Your website address will be shorter and easier to remember. http://www.acme.com is better than http://users.yourisp.com/accounts/~acme (how many people would remember the second address?).
If you own a domain name, you can move your site to a different web host at any time, without changing the website address. In fact, your customers may not even be aware that you have moved to a different web host.
You can create as many sub-domain names as required.

Attributes of a good domain name:

Easy to remember. This is the most important attribute of a good domain name.
Short and concise domain names are generally better.
Easy to spell. Don’t use a name if there is more than one way to spell it (or consider registering all possible misspellings).
Don’t use dashes in the domain name. Firstly, dashes will confuse people. Secondly, somebody else is bound to register your domain name without the dashes and you will loose much of your business to them.

Domain Name Alternatives

When your store is set up, we will give you a temporary domain name that can be used to access your site until your real domain name has been set up. We do not recommend that you publish this.

Domain Name Registration

International Domain Names

International domain names are those ending with an extension such as .com, .org, .net, .info, etc. There are many registrars that sell these domain names. When you register such a domain name, make sure that the registrar is approved by an organisation called ICANN.

National Domain Names

International domain names usually end with an extension such as .au (Australia), .us (United States of America), .de (Germany), etc. Each country has its own registrar and rules about how the domain names can be allocated. For example, in Australia companies normally register a domain ending with .com.au. If you are located outside of the United States, please check with your ISP to find out the contact details of your country’s domain name registrar.

While the official country code for the United States is .us, it is most common for US companies to register an international domain name such as .com.

Pointing a Domain Name to Your Website

Your ISP will set up everything for you, so that you don’t need to worry about technical details. They will give you the address of their domain name servers (DNS). You simply provide these details to your registrar.

How to Transfer a Domain Name

To transfer a domain name to a different web host, you can contact your domain name registrar and update their DNS details with the new ISP gives you. It normally takes some time for all DNS servers around the world to be updated with the new details, so it can take about 24 to 48 hours until people see the new website when they type in your domain name.

Sub-Domain Names

Use of sub-domain names is useful if you have multiple sites that are hosted by different web hosts or on different servers. For example, if your domain name is acme.com, you could set up two sites:

http://www.acme.com and http://acme.com
Your existing website hosted on any web host.
http://store.acme.com
An online store hosted on a different sub-domain. This means that the store could potentially reside on a different server, with a different IP address.

Your ISP can set up sub-domains for you. Please contact them if you require more information.

Protecting Your Brand

Domain names are allocated on a first come first served basis. Registering a domain name doesn’t mean that you will have special rights to use that name. When registering a new domain name, you should be careful to ensure that you will have proper rights to use that name in the long term.

a) Common law rights If your domain name is the same as or very similar to the name of an existing business, then you might have a problem. The other business does not have to own a trademark. If they have been trading under that name in the past, they might have some common law rights to use that name. For example, you cannot pass your products off as somebody else’s and you cannot use a name when there is a chance that it could confuse consumers as to the origin of the products you are selling. b) Trade mark registrations A trademark registration gives you formal rights to exclusive use of a certain name. In order to protect a domain name, we strongly recommend that you considering a trademark.

Since the law is very complex, we recommend that you seek advice from a local solicitor about these matters.