The short answer
A domain name is the human-readable address for a website - things like yourbusiness.com or yourservername.net. Behind the scenes, every website actually lives at a numeric IP address (like 198.12.239.74), but nobody wants to remember strings of numbers. A domain name maps to that address so people can just type a name instead.
How domain names are structured
A domain has two main parts: the name itself and the extension (also called a TLD, or "top-level domain").
- yourbusiness - the name you choose
- .com - the extension. Other common ones are .net, .org, .io, and .us
You can also have subdomains, like shop.yourbusiness.com or blog.yourbusiness.com - separate sections of your site that still live under the same domain.
Why it matters
A domain name is registered to you for a period of time (usually one year at a time, renewable) through a registrar. As long as you keep renewing it, it's yours - nobody can take it, ban it, or change the rules on you the way a social media platform can. It's the one part of your online presence you actually own outright.
This is different from a Facebook page, an Instagram handle, or a Discord server - all of those exist on someone else's platform, under someone else's terms.
Registering a domain
To register a domain, you pick a name, check that it's available, and register it through a domain registrar for a yearly fee. Once it's registered, you point it at wherever your website is hosted (see our Web Hosting and DNS articles for how that connection works).
Need a domain? You can search for and register a domain name directly through our store, and if you go with one of our web design packages, we'll handle the domain and hosting setup for you.