When you deploy your website on a web server for the first time, the address of your website may be still an IP address (number). IP addresses are suitable for a computer to handle but not suitable for humans to handle. To convert your website address into a human-friendly URL, you need a domain name.
Using a domain name instead of an IP address has several benefits:
To convert an IP address to a domain name, you need to do two things.
When you want to use your own domain name, you need to buy it from domain registrars. Prices differ by domain name type. Usually, the most popular and expensive one is .com
. There are many other domain name types including .net
, .org
, .edu
, .gov
, and .io
.
When internet users access a website via ISP (Internet Service Provider), an HTTP request is sent to the DNS server (Name server) to convert the URL into the IP address of the website. This conversion is called name resolution. This name resolution is done via a matching table (DNS record). Thus, you need to add your DNS record (your website's IP address and your domain name for the IP address) to the DNS server in advance.
Note: When you are using a website hosting platform, you may be given a domain name for the platform to run your website. Usually, you can replace the domain with your own domain but the process differs by platform.
When you deploy your website on a web server for the first time, the address of your website may be still an IP address (number). IP addresses are suitable for a computer to handle but not suitable for humans to handle. To convert your website address into a human-friendly URL, you need a domain name.
Using a domain name instead of an IP address has several benefits:
To convert an IP address to a domain name, you need to do two things.
When you want to use your own domain name, you need to buy it from domain registrars. Prices differ by domain name type. Usually, the most popular and expensive one is .com
. There are many other domain name types including .net
, .org
, .edu
, .gov
, and .io
.
When internet users access a website via ISP (Internet Service Provider), an HTTP request is sent to the DNS server (Name server) to convert the URL into the IP address of the website. This conversion is called name resolution. This name resolution is done via a matching table (DNS record). Thus, you need to add your DNS record (your website's IP address and your domain name for the IP address) to the DNS server in advance.
Note: When you are using a website hosting platform, you may be given a domain name for the platform to run your website. Usually, you can replace the domain with your own domain but the process differs by platform.