A domain name is an Internet or web-based name that makes it easy for users to find your site. In reality, your domain name, or in other words your computers address, is a complex string of numbers that people would find difficult to remember and annoying to key in. Fortunately, the Domain Name System (DNS) allows computers to convert these numbers into letters and numbers that people find easier to understand and remember. Acquiring a domain name was once quite expensive, but cheap domain names are now readily available.
Domain names were expensive in the early days of the Internet, because they were available from only one organisation, Network Solutions, operating through an exclusive government contract. At one time, domain names cost ₤100 or more. By 1998, however, the massive growth of the Internet led to the formation of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a private sector, non-profit organisation formed by a combination of global Internet interests. With deregulation came cheap domain names, because one of ICANNs main aims was the encouragement of greater competition in the domain registration industry. There are now many...