SWABIZZ
In the Business of Superior WEB Accessed Solutions
Domain Names
The most common types of domain names are hostnames
that provide more memorable names to stand in for numeric IP
addresses. They allow for any service to move to a different
location in the topology of the Internet (or an intranet), which
would then have a different IP address.
By allowing the use of unique alphabetical addresses instead of
numeric ones, domain names allow Internet users to more easily find
and communicate with web sites and other server-based services. The
flexibility of the domain name system allows multiple IP addresses
to be assigned to a single domain name, or multiple domain names to
be assigned to a single IP address. This means that one server may
have multiple roles (such as hosting multiple independent websites),
or that one role can be spread among many servers. One IP address
can also be assigned to several servers, as used in anycast and
hijacked IP space.
Hostnames are restricted to the ASCII letters a through z
(case-insensitive), the digits 0 through 9, and the hyphen, with
some other restrictions. Registrars restrict the domains to valid
hostnames, because they otherwise would be useless. The
Internationalized domain name (IDN) system has been developed to
bypass the restrictions on character allowances in hostnames, making
it easier for users of non-English alphabets to use the Internet.
The underscore character is frequently used to ensure that a domain
name is not recognized as a hostname, as with the use of SRV
records, for example, although some older systems such as NetBIOS
did allow it.
Domain names are often referred to simply as domains and domain name
registrants are frequently referred to as domain owners, although
domain names, technically, are leased from a registrar such as
SWABIZZ.
