Frequently Asked Questions
What is a domain name?
A domain name is the address people type into a browser in order to reach a site. Much like a fingerprint, each domain name is unique to a specific website and cannot be shared or duplicated with other web pages. If you look at the very top of this page, you’ll see that the domain name of this website is carrollcomputing.com.
Domains were created as a human-friendly way to access the Internet Protocol (IP), which represents a website’s online locator. An IP address is a string of numbers assigned to every computer, consisting of four decimal numbers ranging from 0 to 255 separated by periods. While these seemingly random series of numbers are great for computers, it’s much easier for humans to use words they can remember. And similar to saving a number on your phone, domain names allow us to save 172.217.3.196 as google.com
All domain name registrations are overseen by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which allocates and assigns IP addresses, runs accreditation systems for domain registrars and keeps a centralized database of all domain names and their IPs. The ICANN also has the authority to approve new domain extensions (also known as TLDs), manage them and shut them down if they don’t follow the determined rules.
It’s important to keep in mind that, while domain names are commonly referred to as URL (Universal Resource Locator) or web address, they’re actually just a part of it (albeit a crucial one). The basic form of a domain name consists of two elements: name and extension. In our case, “carrollcomputing” is the name and “.com” is the extension. However, if you take a look at your browser’s address bar you’ll notice there are a lot more parts to it, all of which come together to make up this page’s web address.
Do I need a domain for an email address?
Yes. You’ll need a registered domain for us to provide you with email addresses on that domain (For example, our domain carrollcomputing.com uses info@carollcomputing.com for general emails). You do not need hosting space in order to have email addresses, so please ask us for a quote for those individually here
