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But what you most
basically need for a live web site is a number. The name you purchase will
have a corresponding unique 'IP address'. In a sense the name is a substitute
for a number address. The technical implications of this is that your domain
name itself must be in some place where a computer can go to discover that
the IP address is associated with this name. That's an important detail
of the way the web works. This association contains the name's field and
the addresses of the IP live server of that name, or nameserver for short.
Thus a nameserver acts as a pointing guide for other computers on the network
to actually locate your web site. |
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| Each nameserver
computer has responsibility over keeping these details of at least one but
usually many domain names. Which is why you are often asked when you register
a name, to put in your secondary as well as primary nameservers. Thus if
your primary nameserver is out of action, people's computers can still find
your site through your secondary nameserver (or third, fourth and fifth
nameserver if you want to play it really safe.) Your primary name server
is termed your Domain Name Server, or DNS. Sometimes, however, this information
is not totally up to date, because of the nameserver practice of caching.
Like the cache memory in your own computer, a nameserver may store details
of domain name IP relationships to speed things up. So if you ever change
the IP of your domain name, it will take a little while for some site users
to catch up. |
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If you decide
to move nameservers, then what you are really doing is transferring the
right for the nameserving of the association between a particular IP address
and its domain name. |
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So domain names
are merely a pointer that you type in a browser which actually point to
a number? What is all the fuss about? Why do you come across so many references
on the net to big dollars changing hands for domain names? |
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Why?----> |
