Each website lives on a server. This server has a public IP address that’s available to everyone connected to the internet. An IP address is a unique identifier for each device connected to the Internet. Think of it like a street address. This is what your browser uses to find where the website is.
There is just one problem. It’s difficult to remember all these IP addresses. The computer may remember them easily, but humans do not.
That’s what domain names are for. You can think of them as aliases for the real destination behind them: the IP address. Without domain names, we would be sharing our websites in IP addresses.
“Please visit our website at 188.114.96.3 for more information”. That wouldn’t look very nice, would it?
But how does the browser know the IP address of the domain? That’s where DNS comes in. DNS is like a phonebook that holds the records and maps countless domains to each IP address.
If you ever decide to purchase a domain, the registrar will provide you with a DNS manager where you can configure the destination your domain is pointing to. That’s how you decide who’s hosting your domain.
Where can we use domain names?
Domain names are used in many places, but two of them stand out.
The first are websites. This is where you visit links in social media or on the Google search results page. They all use domains, including this blog. farhandigital.id.
The second use case is email. If you’re like most people, you probably have your own youremail@gmail.com. That gmail.com at the end is a domain. Using the same principle of how domain works, if you obtain your own domain, you can actually create your own email using your own domain name.
That’s how companies make professional emails. Such as support@google.com. If you have your own domain that’s attached to your name, you can have your own email at [insertwhatever]@yourdomain.tld.
That insertwhatever is not an exaggeration. You can almost literally put everything in there as long as it’s a valid identifier. It can be “contact”, “me”, “hello”, whatever you prefer. I myself prefer “contact” as a clear indication that you can contact me through this email, which is contact@farhandigital.id.
How do you get a domain?
You can get it from any domain registrar. The famous ones are Namecheap, GoDaddy, and Cloudflare. l. I’d suggest purchasing it directly from Cloudflare. It has one of the best DNS management tools out there. You can also take advantage of other Cloudflare benefits, such as DDoS protection. They also don’t take a markup price, meaning you pay exactly the amount they pay to the domain registry (the ones who own the TLD).