The Marketing Education Minute: What’s a Domain?

If you don’t have a domain name right now, that’s because you don’t have a website. A domain name is required to have a website. Or at least one that actually appears on the internet. But what exactly is a domain?

Domains: A Pixar Analogy

For this internet concept, I like to use the example of Monsters, Inc. If you haven’t seen the movie, the basic premise is that in the Monster world, their power is provided by screams of the children they scare each night. They gain access to these children’s rooms via a seemingly endless supply of doors, each of which, when plugged into their system, allows them a basic interdimensional entry door into a specific child’s room through the closet (it’s much cuter and less creepy in the movie).

In the internet world the domain is that door. It is pretty much useless on its own but when ‘hooked up’ to a hosting server (a computer off somewhere in a boring room loaded with computers) connected to the internet, which contains the files and code that make up your website, it becomes a ‘door’ that people can open and enter your world (your website).

What does a domain look like?

A domain doesn’t ‘look’ like anything because it is a computer language construct, but I get what you are saying. In the big picture of your website (or the website you may have someday), the domain is the part that comes immediately after ‘https://’ in the address line of your browser. It is what is commonly referred to as the ‘website address’. So for Kohl’s, their domain is kohls.com. For Bank of America, it’s bankofamerica.com. For Nissan it’s….you’re thinking Nissan.com, but you’re wrong, someone bought that domain before Nissan developed a web presence so they were forced to take nissanusa.com. Those website addresses, their domain names, are the door for you to get to their internet “room”, their website. If you type in nissanusa.com in that address bar, the door’s connection process starts. The address bar itself is called a URL- or Universal Resource Locator, which decodes whatever is typed there and then connects the ‘door’ to the ‘room’, and the red light comes on over the door (Monsters, Inc watchers are following me already, but the red light indicated the door was ‘live’ and connected to the kid’s room).

But what is the ‘https’ part?

So for any amount of data that is going to be transmitted on the internet, there are rules, or ‘protocols’ that are followed. “Https” stands for hypertext transfer protocol (secure), and is the singly used protocol for modern day internet traffic by the mass public. The secure part means any information inputted to the site is protected by a layer of security. Back in the old days (like 3 years ago), you could go to sites that didn’t have the ‘s’, put your info in, and that was COMPLETLY unsecure. Now, most internet browsers automatically flag non-https sites and give you a warning that your data transmitted on that site is NOT secure. There are still other protocols used on the internet, they just aren’t used by the broad public (or for internet browsing like SMTP, used for email), and those are the topic of a much more technical post….but if you are curious, to see the historical and currently used internet protocols read more here.

So If I have a Domain Name I have a Website, right?

Whhooooah there young fella, just a minute. Just because you have a domain name, doesn’t mean you have a website. Huh? Didn’t you just say that the domain name was a website address? Yes, but just because you have a door, doesn’t mean you have a room to enter and scare kids in, Sully. For anything to happen when you put a domain name into the URL address bar, you have to have a website constructed on a hosted server. A whoseywhatssit?? Let’s go back to the Monsters, Inc. analogy. The door is your domain name, the URL connects it to the ‘room’, where your website resides. But if you haven’t built a website, the door goes nowhere (actually the red light would never come on in the first place). The Hosting server (which you get by buying ‘Hosting’ with your domain), is the room. If you do not build a site, the room is there, but it’s empty. But after you write some code or have a content management system (like WordPress) write some for you, then something actually appears when your domain (door), is connected to the Monsters, Inc. scare system (the red light connecter thing), and you open the door into the room. Now you see a bed, some toys, and a child ready to be scared to provide the fuel that runs your world. Or in your case, people learn all kinds of great things about your business, maybe find a way to contact you, buy from you, or set up an appointment, and BAZINGA- you make more money.

Wrapping up the PIXAR analogy

Mike W Domain

In Monster’s Inc, you will reassured there is a very Disney ending that laughter actually generates about ten more times energy than ‘scream’ (which actually doesn’t hold up to scientific scrutiny, if you were wondering). But hopefully this analogy has given you a clue about what domains are and the role they play in relation to the internet as a whole, and to the other required element, your hosting agreement.

Knowing what a domain and a hosting agreement are is one thing, but expertly constructing a website using them are another. Totality Business Solutions stands ready to help you build your own ‘door’ to the daily increasing number of consumers using the internet and the internet alone to learn about businesses and shop from them. To set up a FREE no-hassle, no commitment appointment to talk about digital or any other kind of marketing and how they are essential and can transform your business if done properly, please use this form to reach out!