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Understanding Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and doman namesis important to your safety. Every domain name has an IP address associated with it.
About Domain Names:
People who don't have a Website often don't have any experience with domain names and don't understand how they work. Knowledge is power. Anyone, anywhere - with a credit card and an Internet connection – can register a domain name, for less than $10/year. Since domains are so inexpensive, there are many bogus domain registrations and, consequently, bogus Websites. So, understanding domain names helps you be smarter and safer on the Internet.
Domain names are one of the building blocks of the Internet, and they are a critical part of every Web address. Domain names come in many flavors - Yahoo.com, Verizon.net, Job-Hunt.org, Harvard.edu, Del.icio.us, Simpatico.ca, Whitehouse.gov, Navy.mil, etc.
Whenever you have a question about who owns a domain name, check one of the domain “whois” (literally, “who is?”) sites, like DomainTools.com. Every domain name has a "registrant" which is the owner of the domain name. When it doubt, contact the domain registrant to verify who they are. If you never get an answer or the person who answers claims no knowledge of the domain name, assume that the domain is part of a scam, and avoid doing any business with it.
Also be wary if the domain name is listed as "Private" which means the domain owner has purchased a service to block their contact information.
The letters after the “dot” – as in “dot com” – represent the Top Level Domain (TLD). And .com is the most common commercial TLD.
The TLD may give you a good hint about the credibility of the Website, and, sometimes, where it may be located.
| TLD |
Constituency |
Control of purchase or use |
*.com |
most common commercial domain in the U.S. (but don’t assume that all .com’s are U.S. based) |
Open to purchase by anyone |
*.net |
another very common commercial domain, not unique to the U.S. |
Open to purchase by anyone |
*.org |
another very common commercial domain, not necessarily associated with non-profit status |
Open to purchase by anyone |
*.us |
the Country Code for the United States |
Open to purchase by anyone who certifies that the are in the U.S. |
*.ca |
the Country Code for Canada – there are over 100 other Country Codes for most of the countries in the world, e.g. .uk for the United Kingdom, .ie for Ireland, etc. |
Depends on the country |
*.edu |
used by educational organizations, mostly colleges and universities, and is pretty reliably used only by education in the U.S. |
Fairly closely controlled |
*.gov |
used by the U.S. government |
Closely controlled |
*.mil |
Used by the U.S. Department of Defense |
Closely controlled |
- Other important information:
- All domains are unique. No two organizations use the same domain name, although the only difference may be the TLD (e.g. jobsearch.org vs. jobsearch.com), very close spelling (e.g. USAJOBS vs. USSAJOBS) or hyphens (e.g. job-hunt.org vs. jobhunt.org) in the middle.
- However, conversely, the same Web site may have multiple domain names. Type job-hunt.com into your browser's Address bar, and you end up at job-hunt.org.
- Everything connected to the Internet is associated – somehow and somewhere – with a domain name, whether it’s an e-mail address or a Web page.
- For a domain name to be visible on the Web or to receive e-mail, it must be associated with an IP (Internet Protocol) address, like 216.78.94.111.
About Internet Protocol (IP) Addresses
An IP address is the number assigned by the Internet network infrastructure enabling the network connect with different components of the Internet. I think of it as the "machine-language" address that corresponds to the "human-language" addresses we call domain names. IP addresses are comprised of a series of numbers in 4 sets of 1 to 3 numbers, ranging from 0 to 255. For example, 1.1.1.1 is an IP address, and so is 255.255.255.255, and everything in between.
When you see an IP address in your browser's location bar, you have no idea what the domain name is. Sometimes that's accidental. More often, the IP address is used to disguise the domain name. So when you see an IP address in the locaiton bar, be very careful!
Bottom Line
Knowledge is power. However, as the old sergeant on the Hill Street Blues TV show used to say, "Be careful out there..."
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Article by Susan P. Joyce,
online job search expert, Job-Hunt's owner, publisher, and editor.
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