Domain names are the key to your online presence, they allow your website, your email and a range of other services to work online for you, so it’s crucial to choose a high quality provider with experience in the field. One mistake with your domain name and it can stop your email and website working, so don’t risk a quick do-it-yourself sign up online, get the experts to do it.
I suggest keeping your domain under 15 characters while more extended domains will result in difficulties for your users to bear in mind. Not to discuss, users will likewise be more susceptible to getting in typos with longer domain names, which can cause loss of traffic.
Top-Level Domain (TLD)
Top-level domain (TLD) refers to the last segment of a domain name, or the part that follows immediately after the “dot” symbol.
For example, in the internet address: https://www.google.com, the “.com” portion is the TLD.
TLDs are mainly classified into two categories: generic TLDs and country-specific TLDs.
Examples of some of the popular TLDs include:
- .com
- .org
- .net
- .gov
- .biz
- .edu
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), is the entity that coordinates domains and IP addresses for the internet.
Historically, TLDs represented the purpose and type of domain or the geographical area from which it originated. ICANN has generally been very strict about opening up new TLDs, but in 2010, it decided to allow the creation of numerous new generic TLDs as well as TLDs for company-specific trademarks.
Top-level domains are also known as domain suffixes.
Country Code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD)
A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is a top-level domain name that is used to define the domain for a particular country or a geographical area. Every country has a domain name reserved for it; this is generally denoted by a ccTLD, which is generally two letters long.
Every country, geographical area, sovereign state or a dependent territory has its own two-letter code that defines its country code top-level domain.
Some of the most common ccTLDs are:
- .us for the United States
- .ca for Canada
- .uk for the United Kingdom
- .in for India
- .au for Australia
However, organizations often choose to use top-level domain names like .com, .net and .org rather than using their country’s ccTLD.
Subdomain
A subdomain is a domain that’s part of a larger domain. For example, mail.google.com, www.google.com, and docs.google.com are all subdomains of the domain google.com. Domain owners can create subdomains to provide easy-to-remember addresses for web pages or services within their top-level domain.
Naked domain
A naked domain is simply a domain address without the “www” prefix, such as google.com (naked) instead of www.google.com (non-naked).
Primary domain
With Google Cloud services, your primary domain is the domain you used to sign up for your enterprise account. You can add other domains to your account later.
Secondary domain
In addition to your primary domain, you can add additional domains to your account to let users in those domains use your services, too. When you add a domain that has its own users, we refer to it as a secondary domain.
Domain alias
A domain alias is a domain name that acts as an alias for another domain. You can add a domain to your account as a domain alias to give everyone in your domain another email address at the domain alias. Mail sent to either of a user’s addresses arrives at the user’s same email inbox.
IP address
An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a series of numbers that identifies the physical location of a particular device on the Internet network. An IP address looks something like this: 74.125.19.147
Since a domain name can have one or more associated IP addresses, Google doesn’t support email and web publishing configurations using IP addresses alone.
Domain registrar
A domain registrar is a company that sells domain names that aren’t yet owned and are therefore available for registration. Most of these companies also offer domain hosting.You can register a domain through Google Domains (beta) and we also offer registration through domain host partners. You can purchase a domain name through a partner when you sign up for a Google Cloud account. If you purchase a domain while signing up for Google Workspace, we automatically activate Gmail for the domain and create custom web addresses.
Domain host
A domain host is a company that runs the DNS servers for your domain and manages its DNS records. These include MX records for setting up Gmail (if you’re using Google Workspace), CNAME records for creating web addresses, and more. Most domain hosts offer domain name registration, as well.
Name server
A name server serves as a reference point for your domain’s DNS data and is typically maintained by a domain host company. When a name server fails, your mail delivery may be delayed or your web site unavailable, so you should have at least two physically separated name servers to eliminate a single point of failure. Some countries require that name servers reside on different IP networks for reliability. Each name server must return identical records for your domain.
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