What is a web address?

A web address is the location of a web page [Link?] on the internet [Link To Glossary]. It is your place on the internet! A web address follows a standard layout which normally consists of:

http://www.domains.co.uk

http:// - Is essential to tell the browser we are looking for a web page.
www. - Stands for 'World Wide Web' which is sometimes needed in an address.
domains - This is the name of the page we want. Can be replaced with anything e.g. 'Yahoo' or 'Google'.
.co.uk - Is the location and type of website. For example '.co.uk' is the United Kingdom. '.tv' is Television.

Domain names are hostnames [glossary link] that provides a more accessible way to visit a websites instead of remembering long and complicated numeric IP addresses. Also because a domain doesn't change the address will stay the same while web pages can be moved onto different servers with minimal disruption.

Obviously a domain name has to be unique so your page can be found but there are plenty of combinations to choose. Use our domain search in the top right hand of the site to see if you can find your perfect domain with us!

How to find a specific page on the internet

Using a domain like http://www.domains.co.uk finding a specific page is easy if you know what it is called. The page is simply added to the domain with a forward slash '/' before the page name. For example if the page is called 'support.htm' you would type:

http://www.domains.co.uk/support.htm

If you don't know the page name there will always be navigation on the website which points you in the right direction.

What is an email address?

An email address is your contact card on the internet. An email address has similar properties to a domain as you can see from the example below:

john@domains.co.uk

john - This is the local part of the address, normally the username. Used to distinguish between individuals.
@ - Stands for 'at'. An essential part of an email which is always present.
domains.co.uk - This is the domain, exactly the same as the web address. When you acquire a domain you also get email addresses with your specific domain.

You would read this email address as "john at domains dot co dot uk".