So I can spin up a website that runs off my computer, no problem. The address (which you type into the bar) is some number like 199.999.999.9. Of course, no ones ever going to go to your number website, so it needs a normal name.
Early on, an international trust group (icann) became the official administrators of that normal name service (dns). Theres a few layers to it to keep things safe from a single point of failure (so no one can take over icann and hold the whole internet hostage), but largely it’s all theirs.
If no one owns the domain name, they’re offering to do the paperwork to get it registered for you, for a small fee. Unfortunately, early on some enterprising assholes realized names were a new goldmine, so they registered everything they could think of and put fake placeholder websites up. Now the stores look up to see who owns what, and what they’re charging for it. Usually it’s a pretty minimal fee, but once in a while you’ll want something specific, and the person who owns it knows you want it, so something like awesome.com will be 1000s of dollars. So then the company contacts the owner, pays the fee, does the paperwork to change the ownership at icann, and then hands you the domain.
Computers actually keep track of where website communications are going using an “Internet Protocol address” or IP address. You are probably familiar with numbers like 192.0.2.1 but that is hard for people to remember. Instead more easily remembered “uniform resource locators” or “URLs” are used, which you probably know as a “web address”. An example would be http://www.google.com or similar website addresses.
The key is that your computer needs to be able to turn the web address into an IP address, which it does through the “Domain Name System” or “DNS”. This is a network of servers which keep track of big tables that match all the web addresses to the appropriate IP addresses, and will serve that information up on demand. That way a particular web address can be pointed at the appropriate IP address for the server with the right website simply by updating all the networked DNS.
Obviously all this relies on there being no conflicts. Two servers can’t have the same IP address, or the same web address, etc. There needs to be a central authority to control all that, and that authority is the “Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers” or “ICANN”. It is a US-based non-profit that is in charge of coordinating and maintaining those names and numbers so the internet functions properly. In turn they license “domain registrars” which are other companies that offer services related to providing domain registration to the public. If you wanted to register http://www.ibbehyk.com you could go to any of the licensed domain registrars and pay for them to reserve that website name, and to have it point to an IP address you specify (which presumably will serve up a web page). Any of the registrars can offer the same domain name as long as it isn’t reserved by someone else already.
There’s a central registry of domains, which is where your domain gets, well, registered. They are not on shelf like toy trucks and you can only buy the ones that the store you are in has on stock. In any case, the registration is cheap and you can do it via any of thousands of hosters.
That is, if you want a new domain that isn’t registered yet. If you want one that already exists, you have to buy it off the current owner – prices differ and can range from a few hundred to a couple of million (no matter if Euros or Dollars).
It is usually not worth trying to buy a pre-registered domain, as there are still billions of unregistered ones available.
So you are buying the right to use a particular domain name for a certain period in terms of years. And the domain stores are actually called domain registrars who, as the name implies, help you to register the domain name from a central registry with a fee. A lot of companies can become a registrar, but once the domain has been registered, nobody can register it again.
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So I can spin up a website that runs off my computer, no problem. The address (which you type into the bar) is some number like 199.999.999.9. Of course, no ones ever going to go to your number website, so it needs a normal name.
Early on, an international trust group (icann) became the official administrators of that normal name service (dns). Theres a few layers to it to keep things safe from a single point of failure (so no one can take over icann and hold the whole internet hostage), but largely it’s all theirs.
If no one owns the domain name, they’re offering to do the paperwork to get it registered for you, for a small fee. Unfortunately, early on some enterprising assholes realized names were a new goldmine, so they registered everything they could think of and put fake placeholder websites up. Now the stores look up to see who owns what, and what they’re charging for it. Usually it’s a pretty minimal fee, but once in a while you’ll want something specific, and the person who owns it knows you want it, so something like awesome.com will be 1000s of dollars. So then the company contacts the owner, pays the fee, does the paperwork to change the ownership at icann, and then hands you the domain.
Computers actually keep track of where website communications are going using an “Internet Protocol address” or IP address. You are probably familiar with numbers like 192.0.2.1 but that is hard for people to remember. Instead more easily remembered “uniform resource locators” or “URLs” are used, which you probably know as a “web address”. An example would be http://www.google.com or similar website addresses.
The key is that your computer needs to be able to turn the web address into an IP address, which it does through the “Domain Name System” or “DNS”. This is a network of servers which keep track of big tables that match all the web addresses to the appropriate IP addresses, and will serve that information up on demand. That way a particular web address can be pointed at the appropriate IP address for the server with the right website simply by updating all the networked DNS.
Obviously all this relies on there being no conflicts. Two servers can’t have the same IP address, or the same web address, etc. There needs to be a central authority to control all that, and that authority is the “Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers” or “ICANN”. It is a US-based non-profit that is in charge of coordinating and maintaining those names and numbers so the internet functions properly. In turn they license “domain registrars” which are other companies that offer services related to providing domain registration to the public. If you wanted to register http://www.ibbehyk.com you could go to any of the licensed domain registrars and pay for them to reserve that website name, and to have it point to an IP address you specify (which presumably will serve up a web page). Any of the registrars can offer the same domain name as long as it isn’t reserved by someone else already.
There’s a central registry of domains, which is where your domain gets, well, registered. They are not on shelf like toy trucks and you can only buy the ones that the store you are in has on stock. In any case, the registration is cheap and you can do it via any of thousands of hosters.
That is, if you want a new domain that isn’t registered yet. If you want one that already exists, you have to buy it off the current owner – prices differ and can range from a few hundred to a couple of million (no matter if Euros or Dollars).
It is usually not worth trying to buy a pre-registered domain, as there are still billions of unregistered ones available.
So you are buying the right to use a particular domain name for a certain period in terms of years. And the domain stores are actually called domain registrars who, as the name implies, help you to register the domain name from a central registry with a fee. A lot of companies can become a registrar, but once the domain has been registered, nobody can register it again.