All domain names are managed by domain registries , which delegate the reservation of domain names to registrars. Anyone who wants to create a website can register a domain name with a registrar, and there are currently more than 300 million domain names registered .
What is the difference between a domain name and a URL?
A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) , sometimes referred to as a web address, contains the domain name of a site. It also contains other information such as the transfer protocol and path. For new zealand whatsapp example, in the URL '', 'cloudflare.com' is the domain name, while is the protocol and is the path to a specific page on the website.
Domain names are typically divided into two or three parts , each separated by a period. They are read from right to left, so domain name identifiers are arranged from most general to most specific . The section to the right of the last period is the top-level domain (TLD) . These include "generic" TLDs such as ".com," ".net," and ".org," and country-specific TLDs such as ".uk" and ".es."
Anatomy of a URL
To the left of the TLD is the second-level domain (2LD) and if there is anything to the left of the 2LD, it is called a third-level domain (3LD). Let's look at a couple of examples:
For Google's US domain name, 'google.com':
'.com' is the TLD (more general)
'google' is the 2LD (more specific)
But for Google UK domain name, “google.co.uk”:
'.com' is the TLD (more general)
'.co'* is the 2LD
“google” is the 3LD (more specific)