domain name

domain name A symbolic name used to identify a collection of resources on the Internet. Resources are identified by a series of domain names separated by dots, with the right-hand name being known as the TOP-LEVEL DOMAIN. Domain names are read from right to left and become progressively more specific as you proceed leftwards. There are a series of top-level domain names each of which categorizes the domain: for example, edu stands for an educational establishment in the United States, mil stands for a military establishment, and net is used for a major network support centre. There are also a number of top-level domains associated with countries: for example, uk refers to the United Kingdom and fr refers to France. Internet users come into contact with domains in accessing the WORLD WIDE WEB and sending EMAIL. Symbolic addresses of Web resources, expressed as a URL, include the name of the organization which hosts the resource. For example, the URL http://www.open.ac.uk/Students/hm refers to an HTML file held on the computer www at the educational institution identified by open in the United Kingdom academic domain. Email addresses also contain domain names: for example, the email address D.K.Lombard@Firefly.com refers to the user D. K. Lombard at the organization Firefly which is an organization registered as a company.