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The domain name is the online address of your blog and the most common names end in ‘dot com’. The url of your site is its address. The http means the language or protocol that the server (another word for the host) uses to serve (or display) your blog. The www indicates where it is to be displayed – on the public Internet or World Wide Web.

The bit in the middle is the part of the domain name that you pick yourself, you buy and register it with a central authority and it is connected to a numerical equivalent called your IP address. Your domain name, like a written postal address, is the symbolic connection from the host to the web and so becomes your online address.

The extension on the end indicates the place or a type of content that may be found on a site. Dot com is most common as it refers to commercial sites, org is often used by organizations such as universities and when there are letters after the extension they usually refer to a country. Dot.com.au would show that the site has Australian content.

Your chosen domain name is usually one word. Sometimes you will see two words with a dot between them. To give two examples these are two of my free blogs, the first is a poetry blog that I have on wordpress and the second is a yahoo blog I just started. These are the urls.

http://jafrancis.wordpress.com
http://ca.360.yahoo.com/iwant2bunique

For both of them you can see that the www has gone. This is something you need to address when you start to optimise your blog but for now, blogs have two ways of displaying an url that references a folder or subdomain, that is not the root index page. They can display it before the domain name followed by a dot or after the domain name followed by a /.

The first url says that on the site who’s root url is http://www.wordpress.com there is a blog called jafrancis (that’s the part I chose)

The second url is more complex. It says that on the site who’s root url is http://www.yahoo.com there is a section dedicated to Canada ca.360 and a folder called 360 where the blog software is. The part on the end is the bit I chose /iwant2bunique.

In reference to that, I was getting very tired of trying to think up a name that someone hadn’t used before and ended up with this – but I like it, and it works for me to a point! I didn’t choose it as a blog name, I chose it as an email address.

These two urls indicate that one word is a main domain name and one word is a subdomain name. A subdomain is a folder that groups files together in a folder under (or inside) your root domain. It’s a quick way of showing a folder. Free blogs usually have the first type of address, the name you picked and the name of the host.

When you have your own domain name you can use this internal way to display a folder or you can write the url in a different way with the folder trailing the main domain with a / so that it appears after the extension. This is like my chosen name in the yahoo example.

A subdomain is a folder of files in your root domain. The root domain is the first folder. Folders inside subdomain folders usually follow the extension.

For example a wordpress url to the admin area is http://www.mydomainname.com/myblogname/wp-admin assuming that my blog is installed in a folder and not the root the of the domain name.

It sounds more complicated to explain than it really is and when the concept clicks all confusion will evaporate. An url is an address. If you move the street name and the country to different positions that gets a little confusing but it can be worked out. Mostly the order changes a bit but the elements stay constant.

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The main domain name is also called the root url, as it is the tip of the pyramid and the entry point for your site. The first page is always called the index page indicating that it should always be displayed first. With a blog your last post is always the index page. Every folder should also have an index page in it.

A directory is the original pre-Windows name for a folder, same thing, just hosts use the word directory still. Placing a trailing slash or / after an url enables a browser to load sites more quickly by designating the end of the url . The point that says where you want to go to and no further.

The last thing you need to understand is an addon domain. This seems more complicated than it really is but it is just a way for people to have a different address for one designated area or directory.

Think of a block of flats. The normal address structure would be flat 2/450 My Street, World Wide Web. Mrs Bucket got divorced and now lives in flat 3 and she wants her address to say Faulty Towers – not 3/450 so she contacted the local council of addresses and nagged until the post man was told to recognise and deliver all mail addressed to Faulty Towers to Flat 3/450.

The reason behind add on domains is twofold. It’s so that a web address can benefit from having keywords in its title and have a root address that is easy to remember. It is also so that web hosts can sell a large space and don’t have to split it and make you sign in to multiple accounts if you want to have several different topic websites. The host sells you one space with a main domain name. This is your block of flats. Your addon domain names are the pretty addresses for each of the unique units inside it.

In the subdomain example you might have an address that looks something like www.faultytowers.blockofflats.com which really fails for bling. With the add on domain option however Mrs Bucket can buy the domain name www.faultytowers.com and have it redirected as an addon domain to the subdomain folder called faultytowers in the url above. The index page of that folder will be that domains first page.

And the words ‘block of flats’ will never be mentioned again! The mail goes to the same place, the place remains where it has always been but the name is everything anyone could desire it to be.

So an add on domain is really just a subdomain in disguise with its own unique url that displays an address like a top level domain. Because there is so much confusion about this addon domains have a bad reputation. When people first start with addons, installation is a problem for some programs that prefer to use a root domain. Until the concept clicks and sometimes way past then, installation to an addon domain can be a problem.

An add on domain cannot literally be a root domain anymore than a flat in a unitblock can literally be a stand alone house. It can however have a unique url to its subdomain folder that makes it appear that way. And appearances are everything, just ask Mrs Bucket, “…that’s pronounced Bouquet.”!

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