Domains create your website address on the internet. When you own a domain you own a Website Address, you can tell people to go to the URL myWebsite.co.za and they will see whatever content you’ve associated with that domain. Every domain name is matched to an IP address and follows the Domain Name System (DNS).

Without a domain, every website would only be identified by the IP address. Imagine that instead of typing sive.host into your web browser, you had to remember 129.232.14.132, SiveHost’s IP address. Now imagine remembering strings of numbers for every website you ever want to visit!

Domain names make it much easier for people to use the internet. It’s the difference between using latitude and longitude to get somewhere and using a street address to get somewhere.

Let’s use sive.host to show how domain names work. Even though it is a little confusing for most people, domain names are technically read from right to left. No one reads them like this when telling you to visit sive.host, of course! But reading from right to left creates a funnel: the address goes from the very general (top-level domain) to the very specific.

Top-Level Domains

Top-level domains (TLDs) like com, net, and org hold the right-most position in a domain name. Every country can have their own TLD, too. Every domain name must end with a TLD. In sive.host, the TLD is com.