While you can have a website without having a domain name
they'll cause you a lot of problems down the road. But what exactly is a domain
name? How does it all work? And more
importantly, where do you get one? Well, I'll cover exactly that in this
video and much more. And if you think you already know
everything there is to know about domain names and the DNS
stick around you might just learn something new!
In the simplest way possible a domain name is your
website name it's what you type into the search bar to go to various websites
you buy the name that you want and people use it to reach your website
makes sense right? But how exactly does the
internet link a specific website with a specific website name?
Well, It's all an illusion a complex machine that you never see and is
constantly working behind the curtains the website name that you see is
actually just a cover up hiding coordinates or more specifically
an IP address. when you type in ebay.com into your
address bar what do you think happens? A: you go to ebay.com
Or B:
Your browser has a chat with your operating system and if they both don't
know what the hell is an ebay your operating system sends out a baby
server on a quest to search for it... Well if you chose A:
You lose good day sir you get nothing. Because it's B it's actually B.
You see when you type in a website name into the address bar
first your browser checks if it has the IP address of that website
saved in its memory. If not it checks with the operating system of your
computer maybe it has it. And even if that doesn't help it goes on
a quest to search for it. The information request travels to the
domain name system or DNS as the cool kids call it. The DNS
looks up which IP address is associated with the
website name based on that address it knows exactly
which server your website is on. So, it displays your files from that
exact server. Bim Bam Boom you see ebay.com and the next time the
browser just remembers the address so it doesn't need to look anymore. While
this seems like an incredibly complicated process
it actually only takes milliseconds. For these
exact reasons one domain name can link to multiple different websites
over its lifetime because while the name stays the same
the IP address behind the name can be edited and changed by you
to link to different servers. If it links to a different server that means it'll
show a different website. Another added
benefit of this is that you don't need to remember a bunch of
seemingly random numbers. As a human you're more likely to
remember ebay.com, amazon.com or google.com instead of
192.15.5.5 something like that and notice how all of these examples use
the .com extension but there are more extensions beside the
.com one. However why does everyone use the .com
one and are other extensions hurtful to your
website. Well, when the internet was just the teeny
tiny baby back in 1985 Mr. Paul Mockapetris invented the DNS
system and it was created with 7 top level
domains or TLDs for short. Just like the 7 rings
of power presented to the dwarf lords in lord of the rings
each had his own uses. These 7 were .com, .net, .org
.edu, .gov, .mil and .arpa. So, the .com extension was one of the
very first ones created and it stands for commercial it was
meant to be used by businesses looking to profit on the internet. While
the .edu was for educational institutions the .gov one was for governments and
the .mil one was for the military. A .com could be registered by anyone.
The .edu or .mil eeeeh not so much. You had to go through a lot of trouble
and the documents to register those. So, the .com extension was first and
easily available to everyone. This and some other factors over time
made it the default choice that we associate with websites
and that's what most people will try first. But not
owning a .com won't penalize your website. For example, i used a .reviews
extension and you can use anything you like. So, my website is
Emit.reviews but since most people associate websites
with .com in general it's a good idea to own a
.com as well And redirect it to the website that you
want for that reason I own emitreviews.com as well.
Speaking of owning a domain name what's the best way to buy one and how much
does it cost? In general, standard domain names vary
anywhere between $5 and $20 dollars a year of course there's
some edge cases where it cost like thousands of dollars
but I personally buy my domain names from GoDaddy. Because, I like the control
panel, they're reliable and I know that my brand names are safe. Which is
extremely important for example a domain name for 1 year with domain privacy
costs around $20 if you want to pay less than that you can choose
DreamHost for the same domain you'll pay around
$7 and both GoDaddy and DreamHost of course offers domain
privacy which stops people from looking up
information about your domain name and you. Because when you register your
website name you have to provide your email address,
your full name and your phone number. So, all of this information gets
exposed unless of course you live in the European Union
then you're protected by GDPR laws and the domain privacy
isn't as important because GDPR protects you automatically.
But often I don't even look at the domain prices because well
they're yearly... So paying $10 or $15 per year
there's not much of a difference what I look is for reputable companies
that won't mishandle and mismanage my domain and brand names. Because,
I feel that's much more important than saving $5 per year..
Because there are cases where people will try to maliciously steal your
domain names if you build like a big brand around the
name or if it's just like a good name in general.
For example, the world's most expensive domain name
is sex.com which was recently sold for 13 million dollars.
And the last thing that I want to cover when it comes to domain names are
subdomains what are they and how do you exactly go about
getting one for yourself. So, this is a domain name
the .com part is the extension or a TLD (top level domain)
the name itself is an SLD or a secondary level domain
where the IP address hides. But there's a third component called
the subdomain and it represents a smaller section on your site.
An easier way to think about a subdomain would be something like this
while a domain name leads to your website a subdomain
leads to a specific part or version of your website.
Well, let's say you're running a promotion where users can spin a wheel
once a day on your site and win some discount coupons. You don't
want for this to dominate your home page because
it could distract people from buying but you still want to advertise the
promotion to new potential buyers. So you could use something like
win.yoursite.com and on advertisements you would just say
visit win.yoursite.com to learn more. So your homepage stays
optimized for sales while you still have a separate section
for the promotion win win and the best part is that
subdomains are actually completely free and you can create as many of them as
you want. All you need to do is visit your hosting provider and you'll be able
to create subdomains from your control panel if
you plan on getting a domain name yourself I'll leave my recommended
providers in the description there are often promotions running and
the prices vary. So, check them all out to see which ones offering the best deal.
So, I hope you enjoyed this informational/historical type of video
I definitely liked making them I'll probably do more in the future
but it's kind of crazy to think what the internet started out as and what it is
today. Especially when someone just goes along
and develops a really complex system that we can't imagine our daily lives
without. Anyways good luck building your websites and
i'll see you in the next video!
you