Domain names are used in URLs to identify particular web pages. For example, in the URL http://www.webmail.us/jobs, the domain name is webmail.us. A domain name needs to be registered before building a web page or creating email addresses with that domain extension.

Domain names represent a website's IP address—the string of numbers that are the true identifiers of a website. Domain names can represent one or more IP addresses.

A domain name needs to be registered with a domain registrar, before building a website or creating email addresses with that domain extension.

Every domain is assigned one or more unique numeric addresses, called IP addresses. DNS takes care of locating and routing information to the domains so people can access your website and send you email.

DNS is comprised of a combination of MX Records, A Records, and CNAME Records (see definitions below).

A domain registrar is a company that allows businesses and consumers to purchase the rights to specific domain names. A domain registrar is essentially an online store for purchasing, transferring, and renewing domain names.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a non-profit corporation that was formed to assume responsibility for the IP address space allocation, protocol parameter assignment, domain name system management, and root server system management functions previously performed under U.S. Government contract by IANA and other entities.

For more information on ICANN, please visit icann.org.

A name server is a server within the Internet network that performs translations between fully qualified domain names and IP addresses, according to the domain name system. A name server receives a query about a domain name and then sends back the IP address for that domain, thus routing email and web addresses accordingly.

A top-level domain (TLD) identifies the most general part of the domain name in an Internet address. A TLD is either a generic top-level domain (gTLD), such as "com" for commercial, "edu" for educational, "org" for non-profit, or a country code top-level domain (ccTLD), such as "us" for United States or "sr" for Suriname.

A second-level domain (SLD) is the portion of a URL that identifies the specific and unique administrative owner associated with an IP address. The second-level domain name includes the top-level domain name. For example, in webmail.us, "webmail" is a second-level domain and "us" is the top-level domain.

An MX Record creates an email route for a domain name. The MX Record is what directs email addressed to your domain to a specific mail server on the Internet. Customers that already have an existing web site can use the Webmail.us email services simply by pointing their MX Records to our mail servers. The existing website can remain untouched, completely separate.

An A Record assigns an IP address to a domain name. An A Record routes domain names to their corresponding website by pointing to the IP address assigned by the web hosting provider.

A CNAME creates an alias of an A Record. The alias gains all properties of the original, including IP addresses and mail routes. The purpose of CNAME Records is to avoid pointing a domain name directly to an IP address. This allows web hosts and email service providers to modify their IP addresses without forcing customers to change their DNS records.

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