What is a Domain Name?
The following example illustrates the difference between a URL
(Uniform Resource Locator) and a domain name:
URL: http://www.example.net/index.html
Domain name: www.example.net
Registered domain name: example.net
As a general rule, the IP address and the server name are
interchangeable. For most Internet services, the server will not
have any way to know which was used. However, the explosion of
interest in the Web means that there are far more Web sites than
servers. To accommodate this, the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP)
specifies that the client tells the server which name is being used.
This way, one server with one IP address can provide different sites
for different domain names. This feature goes under the name virtual
hosting and is commonly used by web hosts.
Original content:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name |
