Domain name, URL...What are they? What can they do?

網址是什麼

 

Domain names and URLs


A domain name, sometimes referred to as a “domain”, represents an IP address on the Internet, which can be considered a
home address in the Internet’s virtual world.

A website can be accessed with an IP address, but it is not viable to remember all the sites’ IP addresses (for IPv4,
there are 12 digits, and for IPv6, there are 32), and therefore the concept of a domain is established. With a
domain name, Internet users do not have to remember every website’s IP address anymore. They can easily remember a
site’s access by its domain name instead.

It is like you can search for a contact person’s name on your phone and get his/ her phone number.

A URL is like a domain name, but there is a subtle difference. A URL represents the location of a webpage on its website.
That being said, a URL leads to 1 single webpage, but a domain name can be associated with many URLs. For example,
Net-Chinese’s domain name is net-chinese.com.tw, and the URL of our website’s home page is
https://www.net-chinese.com.tw, while the URL of this article is (
to be inserted). Although the URLs for the home page and
this article are different,the domain name here is the same: net-chinese.com.tw

 

IP、網域、域名、網址

 

Domain lifecycle


As of today, there are hundreds of millions of registered domain names out there. 
To regulate and maintain the Internet’s world properly, we need reputable management, and that is ICANN
(Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) or a registry, which is responsible for designing the rules of
the domains. We must understand what makes up a
complete domain name and its lifecycle before registration.

Firstly, a domain name is composed of a top-level domain and a second-level domain. Usually, a hostname is added before the second-level domain. Let’s use www.net-chinese.com.tw as an example:

The www here is a hostname, which is a type of subdomains. It can be replaced with “shop” or “info” or any other words.
Shop.net-chinese.com.tw can be a URL too.

Net-Chinese is the second-level domain, which is the name that we need to come up with when trying to register a
domain name. A second-level domain can consist of digits (0-9), English characters (a-z) and hyphens ( - ). 
Now we also have IDNs (Internationalized Domain Name) which support more languages such as Chinese, French, or Russian
to form a second-level domain.

.com and .com.tw are the top-level domains. There are 3 types of top-level domains: generic top-level domains (gTLDs),
new generic top-level domains (New gTLDs), and country code top-level domains (ccTLDs).

Example of top-level domains:

gTLDs: .com, .org, .net

New gTLDs: .app, .shop, .tech

ccTLDs: .tw, .cn, .jp

Each top-level domain is operated by its own registry, and thus their domain lifecycles, rules, and fees could vary.
For example, .com is operated by a registry named VeriSign, while .tw is operated by another registry named TWNIC.

域名規則

Every domain has an expiry date. If a domain name holder wants to keep using his/ her domain, he/she has to renew it to
prolong the
usage. Generally, new gTLDs and gTLDs have a similar lifecycle, while ccTLDs’ lifecycle varies a lot.

Let’s take .com and .tw as the example here.

According to ICANN and the registry (that is VeriSign, as mentioned above)’s regulations, the minimum registration year
for .com is 1 year, and the maximum is 10 years. The lifecycle for .com domains includes its registration, grace period,
redemption grace period, and deletion.

The grace period is a period of 1-40 days counted after the expiration date. If your .com domain is managed with
Net-Chinese,
your DNS resolution will be stopped on the 8th day after the expiration date. If you fail to renew your
domain within the 40 days grace period, the domain name will enter the redemption grace period, when the renewal fee
will be higher than the original. If you fail to renew your domain again during the redemption grace period, then the
domain name will enter the pending deletion period, waiting to be deleted and released to the public.

COM域名生命週期

 

The minimum registration for .tw domains is 1 year and the maximum is 10. There are registration, grace period,
and pending deletion period for .tw domains. Unlike .com domains, there is no redemption grace period for .tw domains;
in other words, if you fail to renew your .tw domain and miss the grace period, it will enter the pending deletion period,
waiting to be deleted. Since the total grace period for .tw domains is relatively short, Net-Chinese will stop the DNS
resolution for expired domains on the first day after the expiration date.

TW域名生命週期

 

We will contact both the member account owners and the domain name owners for domain renewal notices.
We will use emails or phone calls to contact you on the 90th, 60th, 30th, 14th and 7th days before the domain
expiration dates. It is highly suggested to add our email address
service@net-chinese.com.tw to your whitelist and
to keep your contact information up-to-date.

 

Why do I need a domain name?


申請網域的用途

What can a domain name do for you? Not only is the domain name a better tool for your customers to remember your site
(compared with an IP address), but also it has several other features:

 

1. Build a website and set up other services: a domain name can be used to build a website and set up email hosting;
also, it can be used for applications (online platforms, software… etc.) as well.

2. Help with SEO: when a domain name is highly relevant to its website’s content or the market, it will be more likely to
be ranked at a higher position on the search results page. We can also use several domain names to set up URL forwarding
(or URL redirection), making them appointed to the same website. This way, the website traffic will be higher,
which improves SEO effectiveness, and also it has a “back-up entry”.

3. Protect your brand/ trademark: lots of companies have not realized that a domain name is actually associated with
their brands.
If your brand/ trademark terms are registered by someone else and they use them for building malicious
websites, it will be a huge damage to your brands and your companies’ image. There are real cases before where the
companies had to spend a lot of money to buy back their brand domains or escalate the cases to the court.

 

Domain name registration, renewal, management, and protection


Now that you have understood a domain’s lifecycle and its usage, you can start your registration by selecting a top-level
domain! The most common choice is
.com, and here in Taiwan, .com.tw and .tw are popular choices too. 
You can check if your ideal domain name is available
here, and if it is still available, we will suggest you register it
right away.

We provide a one-stop domain management platform that allows you to manage your domains and purchase value-added
services(e.g. SSL certificates) at the same place. All you need to do is to register an account, and this is free of
charge.

We also provide DNS management service which is free of charge and the CDN service which allows your website to be
accessed more quickly for overseas users (fees applicable). For more information about CDN service, please visit
this page.
URL forwarding is one of the services we provide too. Please visit
this page for how to activate it.