How does the browser find a website? Addresses and domain names
๐ In short
Every device connected to the internet has an address made of numbers, like a phone number. But it's hard to remember long numbers for every website! So we type an easy name like atfal.net, and the โinternet directoryโ turns it into the right number in a fraction of a second.
๐คฉ Did you know?
- There are more than 350 million website names registered in the world.
- Two people can't own the same website name at the same time; it's like a unique house number.
- Website names can be written in Arabic letters too, and some Arab countries have endings in Arabic.
- The little padlock next to a website's name means that what passes between you and the site is encrypted, so nobody else can read it.
๐ Find out more
๐ An address made of numbers
A device's internet address looks like 93.184.216.34: four numbers with dots between them. It's called an โIP addressโ, and it tells messages where to go, like a house address on an envelope.
๐ website name
A website's name, like atfal.net, is easier to remember. The last part after the dot sometimes tells us what kind of site it is or its country: .uk for the United Kingdom, .ma for Morocco, .tn for Tunisia and .eg for Egypt.
๐ก The giant phone book
When you type a website's name, your computer first asks a special server called the โDomain Name Systemโ (DNS): what's the number for this name? It answers with the number, then the computer connects straight to the website. All this before you can blink!
๐ฏ Watch out for fake names
Tricksters sometimes make websites with names that look like well-known ones but with one small letter different. So we read a website's name carefully before typing anything into it.
๐งญ Parts of an address
In an address like https://atfal.net/en/computers: https means a secure connection, atfal.net is the website's name, and what comes after the slash is the name of the page inside the site.
๐ Who hands out the names?
Worldwide organizations manage website names so no name is used twice, and each country has its own ending that it runs itself.
๐ See how it works
๐ Key words
- IP address
- A device's number on the internet
- Domain name
- A website's easy name, like atfal.net
- URL (link)
- The full address of a page on the internet
๐งช Try it at home
Look at some website addresses with your parents and find the ending after the last dot: .com, .org or a country's ending? Try to guess each website's country from its ending.
๐งฉ Test yourself
1 Why do we use website names instead of numbers?
2 What does the padlock next to a website's name mean?