domain name

A registered address for an organization or an individual for use on the Internet. Domain names are hierarchical with the parts separated by full stops, known as dots. The highest hierarchical part is called the top-level domain; this identifies the nature of the site:

. gov a government department

. com a commercial company

. org a non-commercial organization

. edu an educational establishment etc. The domain may also identify the country in which the organization is situated:

. uk the United Kingdom

. fr France etc.

The subdomain identifies the organization and sometimes department of an organization or an individual in it:

jsmith. ucsd. edu

identifies John Smith

at the University of California, San Diego campus.

jsmith. ford. co. uk

identifies John Smith

at the Ford Motor Company in the UK.

The Domain Name System (DNS) is the Internet system in which the domain name is given a unique numeric Internet Protocol (IP) address (e. g. 162. 18. 2. 3). When the domain name is keyed into the Internet to access a website the name is automatically translated into its numeric equivalent to enable it to be used by the Internet routing software. The Domain Name Service is the Internet system that implements the Domain Name System and retains in its databases both the domain name and its IP address, which can be accessed by the user. See also uniform resource locator