IP and IP Address
The IP address is assigned to a computer that communicates with other computers over the Internet. The IP, which is the abbreviation of Internet Protocol, is a communications protocol used in network computing. IP is also known as the protocol of the Internet. The IP routing can result in the delivery of packets of data from one terminal to another. The IP protocol is not very reliable though, in the sense that the data can easily get corrupted during the transmission, or there can be unmanaged order of the packages sent, and there can also be a loss or destruction of the data packages during its transmission over the Internet. The chief function of the Internet Protocol (IP) is to ensure that the headers of transmitted packets contain no errors through the use of check-sum.
In simple terms, the IP address is divided into two parts: one part identifies the node or the host, and the second part identifies the network. The IP addresses are the numeric identifiers assigned to a computer or to a device on the TCP/IP network. The IP addresses are typically 32-bit numeric addresses where four numbers (octets) are assigned and they are separated with periods. These octets range from 0 to 255 and they use the decimal format.
For example, 127.0.0.1 is the IP address of the domain name called ‘localhost’. Here, the word ‘localhost’ can be remembered easily by everyone, rather than remembering its numeric format of 127.0.0.1. In the same way, every website is associated with a IP address. IP addresses are normally unique, because if they are duplicated then the whole idea of using Internet for information, education, entertainment, etc., will get completely disorganized. Hence the IP addresses, also called the Internet addresses, are registered and strictly regulated by special Internet authorities. We will see more about IP and IP addresses in another article.
Domain Name
The domain name is a part of the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) and it is used to access the website it represents. In simple terms, the domain name is the web address which is used by the web surfers to find a domain or website. The domain name is the name that is typed in the address bar of the web browser with an extension like.com,.info,.org, .co.uk, .biz, .us, etc. The domain name is based on the DNS, also called the Domain Names System. Domain names can be referred as ‘domain’, and the one who registers the domain name is called the domain owner.
The highest level of domains on the Internet is the Top-Level Domains (TLD). In the hierarchy of the DNS, the TLDs form the DNS root zone. Some of the TLD domain names have these extensions: .com, .mil, .gov, .org, .EDU, etc. There are also the second level and the lower levels of the DNS. The second level domains (SLDs) look like the following examples:
en.wikipedia,org, and
sos.state.ohio.us
In the above examples, the ‘en.’ And the ‘state.’ are SLD names (a second level domain name), the ‘state.’ is again a second level domain name, and the ‘sos.’ is the third level domain name in the example sos.state.ohio.us.
From the above example you can notice that every subsequent levels name is return on the left side of its previous level domain name. There are virtually no limits to how many levels of domain name you can have, but if we have a lot of levels in your domain name then it can create confusion in the minds of your readers.
To be continued…
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