A domain name is the address of your website that people type in the browser URL bar to visit your website.
In simple terms, if your website was a house, then your domain name will be its address.
A more detailed explanation:
The Internet is a giant network of computers connected to each other through a global network of cables. Each computer on this network can communicate with other computers.
To identify them, each computer is assigned an IP address. It is a series of numbers that identify a particular computer on the internet. A typical IP address looks like this:
66.249.66.1
Now an IP address like this is quite difficult to remember. Imagine if you had to use such numbers to visit your favorite websites.
Domain names were invented to solve this problem.
Now if you want to visit a website, then you don’t need to enter a long string of numbers. Instead, you can visit it by typing an easy-to-remember domain name in your browser’s address bar. For example, hostingchilli.com
How Domain Names Actually Work?
To understand how domain names actually work, we will take a look at what happens when you enter them into your browser.
When you enter a domain name in your web browser, it first sends a request to a global network of servers that form the Domain Name System (DNS).
These servers then look for the name servers associated with the domain and forward the request to those name servers.
For example, if your website is hosted on Hosting Chilli, then its name server information will be like this:
ns1.hostingchilli.com
ns2.hostingchilli.comThese name servers are computers managed by your hosting company. Your hosting company will forward your request to the computer where your website is stored.
This computer is called a web server. It has special software installed (Apache, Nginx are two popular web server software). The web server now fetches the web page and pieces of information associated with it.
Finally, it then sends this data back to the browser, and voila, a website shows up.
Now that you understand what a domain name is and how it works, it’s time to get yourself a unique domain name, visit hostingchilli.com, and get an amazing deal on many domain extensions including .com .net and much more…
