What Is Domain Name?

A lot people might not know what is domain name means. I just find out this after I chat with some people who are actually already long time blogging in the blogspore. They always say wanted to buy a .com for their blog, but they don’t know what is domain name means!?

Ok, since there is still so many people still don’t know what is domain name means, so I will write about this.

Domain name is the names with .com, .net, .org or what ever dot that is used for websites.
It is often known as TLD and SLD.
So what the fuck is TLD and SLD?

TLD stands for Top Level Domain, while SLD stands for Second Level Domain. So whats the different?

Domain names extensions such as .com, .net, .org, .info, .in, .my is TLD. Which means only 1 word at the end of the domain name. While domain names extensions such as .com.my, .net.my, .org.my, .co.uk, .com.tw is SLD. There is 2 level of dots at the domain name.

But do not mistake between sub-domain and second level domain.
URL like sohai.blogspot.com is not SLD, it is a sub-domain. blogspot.com itself is a TLD, so anything under .blogspot.com is a sub-domain. So sohai is the sub-domain of blogspot.com.
While sohai.idiot.com.my, sohai is the sub-domain of idiot.com.my.

There is some service like co.cc is providing “Free Domain Name” service.
But it is actually misleading people, coz .cc is a TLD and .co.cc is a domain name itself.
The owner is clever to purchase .co.cc and providing the so called “Free Domain Name” service, but any sites under .co.cc is actually a sub-domain of them, not a SLD.

For example, this blog URL is garfield.in, so it is a TLD domain name.

Why there is so many types of dot?
.com is originally mean Company.
.net is mean Network.
.org is mean Organization.
And etc.
These types of domain name is classified as gTLD (Generic Top Level Domain).

When the Internet is become more and more huge, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) who control the formats of IP and domain name has announced that every country can have their own domain name extension. They called it ccTLD (Country Code Top Level Domain) which you can now see .my is for Malaysia, .in is for India, .sg is for Singapore, .jp is for Japan etc.

These ccTLD is controlled by the country registrar, then these country registrar has created SLD so that more people can buy a more focusing domain name extensions such as .com.my for Malaysia companies, .org.my for Malaysia organization, .edu.my for Malaysia education bodies etc.

Although there was a guide lines to follow, but nowadays, no one actually care about these guide lines. As you can see now, blogs like kennysia.com, arrentan.com etc are not a company website, but they are using a .com as their domain name. This also shown that there is not much people really care and know about the domain name standards. For me as well, I do not buy a .my domain name as I prefer to buy a domain name which is more controllable. This is also another criteria why people no longer follow the formats and guide lines.

A lot people asked about how to get a domain name?
Some idiot thought that by registering a web hosting with any .com name, he/she will be able to choose any desired name as domain name. These peple can be consider as moron.
Why? Coz people usually get the domain name with web hosting, is actually a package. You do pay for the domain name, just that the web hosting company is telling you it is free, it does not mean it is really free, you already paid together with the web hosting account!

If you not yet purchase any web hosting with domain name, I can tell you, do not buy a domain name like this, you will have no control on the domain name you get with the web hosting and the domain name ownership is still belongs to the web hosting company! You will find that you will not be able transfer the service to another company due to they will not release the domain name to you, so at the end, you will still have to stick to them.

Domain names with extensions like .com, .net, .org is usually US$10, there is some domain extension which is more expensive such as .my, .com.my etc. The price is quite fix, but each country code domain have its own sets of price. This is why people usually prefer to buy gTLD which the price is usually around US$10 where it is consider as much more cheap and shorter. a .my is about RM120 and a .com.my is about RM80.

Usually when you buy a domain name directly from a domain name registrar, you will be given an account and you will have access to fully control the domain name to point to which server, or you can even transfer it to another registrar with the domain code which only yourself able to view in the domain control panel.

Anyway, it is much more safer to register a domain name separately from the web hosting account as you can change web hosting service provider anytime when you are not satisfy with their service. All you need to do is just download everything, upload to the new server and point the domain name to the new server via the domain name control panel. In some registrar, there is even some advance features where you can create sub-domain and point you email traffic to google and use google service as your email! I will write about how to do this in the future. One of the registrar which have this advance feature is Kwebserv Domain. It is a very good service and there was a lot of good feed back from my friends who are currently using this registrar’s service now. (Yeah, thats my domain selling site, sorry for self advertising, hahahaha)

Since I had mentioned about web hosting, If you do not know what is web hosting, please wait for my next article. I will explain what is web hosting means.