You type "www.yahoo.com" in your browser and ZAP! You get the site you want and start searching for whatever you need, or you send an e-mail to your buddies and there it goes safely!. Millions of people do it every day and take it for granted, but most don't stop to think how it really works and the many processes and impressive infrastructure that makes it possible. When you type any web address what you are doing is requesting information from a remote machine, but how do you identify it in the vast universe of the Internet? The trick is called IP address (IP stands for Internet Protocol). This is a set of 12 numbers, that uniquely identifies each and all of the machines connected to the Internet. Every time you connect to the Internet with your modem, your service provider assigns you a temporary IP address. You could compare the IP address with a telephone number that you call to request some information. But just imagine if you would have to remember the number of every person you call (or machine in this case). Sounds tough doesn't it?, human mind is not used to remembering numbers. To make life easier, the guys that designed Internet created something called the DNS system, which stands for Domain Name Server System. You can think of it as a gigantic phone book where every Domain Name typed is translated into an IP address. For example yahoo.com can be translated into 216.109.118.78, you can try it in your browser by typing this number. That sounds like a simple task, and it would be except for five things:

• There are billions of IP addresses currently in use.

• There are many billions of DNS requests made every day. A single person can easily make a hundred or more DNS requests a day, and there are hundreds of millions of people and machines using the Internet daily.

• Domain names and IP addresses change daily.

• New domain names get created daily.

• Millions of people do the work to change and add domain names and IP addresses every day.

The DNS system is a database, and is maintained and run by a company named Network Solutions, located in USA. No other database on the planet gets this many requests. No other database on the planet has millions of people changing it every day, either. That is what makes the DNS system so unique!

There are many types of Domains, being the most common the TLD's or Top Level Domains, such as .COM, .NET, .ORG, .EDU, etc. depending on the use they are intended to.
For example, .COM domains are for commercial purposes, .NET for network purposes, .EDU for educational institutions etc. In addition, each country manages its own "Country Domains", in Argentina, is the .AR, which is managed by the Government. A curious example is the Island of Tuvalu in the Pacific, whose country domain .TV is managed and marketed by a California company and brought wealth to its citizens.
Domain Names can be registered through different companies on-line, such as Register.com or Network Solutions and you own them as long as you pay an annual fee to keep it. Some country domains, such as .AR are assigned and maintained for free. If you want to know who owns a domain name you can go to:
http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/whois/ and check it.
As in real estate, domains can be bought and sold, and in some cases prices can be very high. Domains such as "SEX.COM" is said to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and is subject to a legal battle by an ex-convict that stole it fraudulently.

As you can see there are a lot of different tasks involved when doing something so trivial as retrieving your preferred web site, so next time that you type "www.yahoo.com" hope you might understand a little better how it works.
Top