In recent years, domain names have entered our life so tightly that we perceive them in the same way as a phone number or mailbox. With the help of this name, you can go to the desired site and thus find out all the information we are interested in or perform the necessary action. This is the very chain with which you can find what we need. However, few people know how domains work and what they are.
What is a domain?
The domain is the translation of the IP address of the server containing the resource that we are looking for, driving in the domain name. In fact, in order not to remember an address like 192.193.0.0, and addresses like domen.com were launched. With their help, you must agree, using the Internet has become much easier and more convenient. On this, many even managed to build a business that consists in selling beautiful and easy-to-remember domain names. Indeed, with this name, it is easier for customers to remember the site, and in advertising this name can be mentioned.
Domain hierarchy
Domain names are organized in a hierarchy, divided into special levels of domains. There can be any number of them, because the name administrator is able to independently create the so-called subdomains - lower hierarchy domains like poddomen.domain.ru. The following subdomain will be of this form: poddomain.poddomain.domain.com and so on. Thus, lower-level domains are formed.
Mentioning the name of the top-level domain , it should be noted that this, roughly speaking, is its end. For example, there is the highest level of the domain, it is called the first. These are the zones .com, .net, .ru or .club, .travel and others. Ordinary users can only order registration in these zones, and only an organization managing ICANN domain names can create their own zone.
Second level domains
A second-level domain is a two-word name separated by a dot. For example, this is domen.com or domen.travel. Such a name is as short as possible (in the hierarchy), and therefore the most prestigious.
As a rule, second level domain names in all zones are paid. But there are exceptions to all the rules, including this one. Zones such as .tk, .ml, .cf, and .ga can be registered for free. Say, everyone can take possession of the name domen.tk without paying any registration fee (of course, if such a name is free). A free second-level domain differs from paid ones (for example, .com) in that among the latter there are much fewer spam and hacker sites that conduct fraud on the Web. This means that both search engines and users will still give preference to sites that have a paid second-level domain. Moreover, the registration of the same .com is not so expensive - only 15-20 dollars. This amount is paid once for the whole year. Everyone who launches their site is able to find so much money. And it's worth it, after registering such a name, the user will not worry that his free second-level domain can be closed, “hijacked” and carry out other illegal actions. For the vast majority of Internet projects, this is extremely important.
The difference between one level domain
Probably, each user many times came across sites in different domain zones. The zones themselves, frankly, are several hundred. These are global domains like .com, .net, .info; regional (assigned to a single country) .us, .it, .fr; it is also a lot of thematic domains. Recently, by the way, there have been many more. These are zones such as .aero, .travel, .apple, .club and many others.
If we talk about the difference between all these zones, then first of all it should be noted the visual effect that the domain bears. Yandex, for example, was originally located on .ru, after which it started its own mirrors in all other global zones. This allows not only to protect the brand (after all, by driving the address in any zone, the user gets to a single search portal), but also to make the site thematic, to divide it depending on the zone in which it is in demand. For example, the Ukrainian Yandex domain leads to the Ukrainian version of the site (yandex.ua); Belarusian - on yandex.by and so on.
Choosing the top level domain for your site, do not forget about the subject of the site. Accordingly, select a domain for it. For example, the .club zone is perfect for the club’s address, and the .aero zone is often used for the airline’s address.
Why create subdomains?
So, a logical question arises: if the upper level of the domain is, roughly speaking, “good,” then why do we need subdomains — names that are an order of magnitude lower in the hierarchy? After all, it is logical that site names like poddomain.com are remembered worse.
Yes it is. Indeed, remembering such a name is much more difficult than just domen.ru. However, this does not stop doing separate projects on subdomains. For example, for an online store selling different categories of goods, it is quite advisable to create the names kraska.magazin.ru, plitka.magazin.ru. Thus, the buyer will be easier to navigate, and the administrator - it is easier to separate these or those categories of goods.
In addition, the existence of subdomains makes life easier for webmasters who are involved in website promotion. So, in case of increasing the number of links for one subdomain, part of this link mass (which, incidentally, is very popular with search engines) is transferred to the main name. And this, obviously, is very profitable in terms of promotion costs.
Where to find a cheap domain?
The question of where to find and register the top level domain is cheaper for many webmasters. This is relevant primarily for those who intend to launch several projects and for this reason, of course, wants to save on the total cost of domain names. There are only two ways to achieve this: registration with registrars offering lower prices, or wholesale registration. There are companies that register names at a lower cost.
As a rule, prices jump, which means that these lists are constantly updated. They are led by various bloggers and domain news topics. As for registration in bulk, it is recommended to do this with trusted, old companies that have been on the market for at least ten years. So you will get not only a favorable price, but also a guarantee that all domains will be, in simple terms, in good hands.
How is the domain setup?
Setting up a domain name is the final stage that every webmaster who runs his site goes through. It is quite simple to do this: you just need to specify the NS-records of your hosting (as a rule, these are two servers that look like ns1.domen.com and ns2.domen.com). They should be entered into the registrar panel.
In addition, on the hosting side, it is also necessary to bind to the registered domain. This is done in the order control panel by simply registering a name. After that, you will need to wait from several hours to a couple of days so that the records on the side of the domain zone administrator are updated and the domain is visible in the visitors browser.