by Michael Richards

Created on: October 14, 2009

A web address is broken down into three parts, the protocol eg. http://, the domain name eg. example.com and the directory of the domain in which you want to receive eg. /news. The whole address is the url. A domain is simply the name of the site itself e.g. example.com. In short a domain is what the name servers use to locate the IP address where the server with the site is located where the entire url tells the server what protocol to use as well as what directory to look in to find the page being requested.

When one types in a web address such as www.example.com, the request is sent to the registrar which looks up the name servers to use in locating the server where the site is located. It uses the nameservers to get the ip address of the server where the site is hosted and sends the request to there.

Once the host receives the url, it first looks at the domain to find out which directory to look in as the root directory as the site possibly. It then looks at the protocol to determine how to process the request and which directory to look in eg. public_html for http, or public_ftp for ftp protocol. Once in the proper directory, the hosting server looks at the part of the url to the right of the domain to further distinguish which folder to look in to gather the requested files.

In most modern web browsers the protocol http is assumed, therefore most endusers simply have to type in the domain into the address bar to get the page they want to view. However it is important to realize there is more going on than simply typing in an address and having the page you want to look at just pop up. Domain names save you from having to remember the ip numbers to a site, it also saves money for the host and the person putting the site up in that one ip address can be used for several different sites, the hosting server is able to distinguish where to gather the information once the domain name is received. The rest of the url is also important in telling the server what protocol to use as well as the specific directory to look in. Having nothing after the domain simply tells the server to look in the root folder of the domain.

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