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The most popular types of domain names are host names which provide a name to match with the numeric IP address of the computer. These names assist the shifting of any service to a different location in the topology of the Internet and an entirely different IP address will then be assigned to it. Domain names allow the users of the Internet to communicate more easily with different web sites as well as other server-based services by allowing the use of alphabetical web addresses instead of the numeric ones. The flexibility of this system allows multiple domain names to be allotted to one IP address as well as multiple IP addresses to be allotted to one domain name. Thus, a single server may have multiple tasks, for example, hosting multiple numbers of Web sites, or distributing a single task among many servers. A single IP address can also be assigned to multiple servers, like the one used in hijacked IP space.
The host names or domain names are restricted to the ASCII codes “A” to “Z”, the numerical digits “0” to “9” as well as the hyphen. The alphabetical letters are not case sensitive. The International Domain Name (IDN) system has been designed in order to skip the limitations on character allowances in hostnames thereby facilitating the non-English alphabet users to use the Internet. The “underscore” character is used very often in order to make sure that the domain name is not accepted as a hostname. In order to avoid confusion, domain names with underscores are used in cases where the hostnames are required.
Let us now discuss about the different types of domain names that are commonly used in the virtual world: -
• TOP domains-Dot com, dot net and dot org: - Although lot of discussions are going around in order to restrict the “.org” domain to non-profits, however, in the present situation all the three top domains, i.e. “.com”, “.net” and “.org” domain name extensions are free for access without any limitations and are widely recognized throughout the world.
• Country-level domains: - Most countries these days feature a matching top-level domain name which either directly includes the country's initials or are associated with intervening sub domains such as “.co.” or “.org.” For example, India has a country-level domain “.in” and for France it is “.fr”.
• Masquerading Country-level domains: - There are many Web sites across the world which does not wish to advertise their locality or place of origin. For example, the Website “.tv top domain.” is the perfect example of such domains where the county's name has not been exposed.
• Masquerading Sub-domains: - A series of sub domains can be put in a web address, for example, “news.parampara.com” where “parampara.com” is the actual domain.
• ICANN approved alternative top level domain names: - ICANN is the international organization which regulates the allocation of top-level domains across the world. This body has recently allowed the creation of new international domain names such as .aero, .info, etc.
The domain names can be of many other types and can be assigned for various kinds of Web sites in the virtual world.
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