Domain Name

Domain names are used to identify one or more IP addresses.

For example, the domain name microsoft.com represents about a dozen IP addresses. Domain names are used in URLs to identify particular Web pages.

For example, in the URL http://www.pcwebopedia.com/index.html, the domain name is pcwebopedia.com. 

Every domain name has a suffix that indicates which top level domain (TLD) it belongs to. There are only a limited number of such domains. For example:

gov - Government agencies

edu - Educational institutions

org - Organizations (nonprofit)

mil - Military

com - commercial business

net - Network organizations

ca - Canada

th - Thailand

Because the Internet is based on IP addresses, not domain names, every Web server requires a Domain Name System (DNS) server to translate domain names into IP addresses.