Have you ever given any thought to what happens when you enter an website address into the “address bar” of your browser?

The string of text you submit is known as the Uniform Resource Locator (URL), and it contains several important parts that help you find what you’re looking for, including:

• the protocol (e.g., hypertext transfer protocol, or http://)
• the domain name (e.g., yoursite.com.au)
• specific file information (e.g., sub-directories, file names, etc.)

Of the three, the domain name is what most people think of when they hear the words “Web address.” A domain name is a human-friendly way to render the Internet Protocol (IP) address, or the numeric location assigned to a specific computer, resource, or website on the Internet.