First level domains

They also concluded that closely related computers could have names too and the term "domains" came into existence. They also coined name endings like .com etc to distinguish between various domains. Thus business sites were given the ending .com and another well-known family .net was originally created for organisations providing special network services to the Internet. A third Internet family, .org included other organisations that did not fit into the other two. These were called Top Level Domains or simply TLDs. The other three TLDs were: .edu for educational institutions in the USA offering of four-year, degree-granting courses, .mil for all branches of the U.S.military and .gov for the various branches of the U.S. Federal government. Over the years, the distinctions between original TLDs faded.

These days any company, organisation or individual can register with any of these TLDs. Since the distinction has vanished the domain name system is a mess. Companies and registrars are therefore looking for an alternative system for reaching Web sites that can potentially avoid the problems that the domain name system has suffered from. One such alternative is known as RealNames. It's main advantage is that instead of taking you to a particular site the RealNames link in future browsers will take you to a list of all the sites with that keyword. But we must first know how deep the present mess is.

As the Internet grew beyond it's original home in the USA, several new TLDs were added. The first addition was .uk created for organisations in the United Kingdom. With passage of time more countries got connected to the Internet and one TLD for each country was created. These two-letter TLDs like .in for India, .au for Australia and so on were culled from the International Standards Organisation's codes. This has enabled each organisation in a particular country to acquire a name with that ending. Initially, there were about 200 TLDs the naming of which came to be known shortly afterwards as the Domain Name System or DNS for short.

But even this number was to prove inadequate soon and seven new TLDs are to be added shortly. .aero will be open to companies and organisations in the air-transport industry while cooperatives will add .coop to their names. Professionals like accountants, lawyers, physicians and others will be given the ending .pro. Other such TLDs include .biz for companies that missed the bus while .com list lasted.

Second and third levels

Technically a company or organisation's very own, personal name is called the second level domain. Most companies choose second-level domain names that reflect their company name. The best-known second-level domain today is Microsoft Corporation's 'Microsoft.' Other companies use second-level domain names that points to their product or service. Thus, famous online bookseller Barnes and Noble uses the second-level domain "books". The first step in the naming game is to combine your TLD and second-level domain name separated by a period. For example:Yahoo.com.

That brings us to the third level domains. If you had just one computer, your job is done at the second domain level. But if you have more than one computer you can add a third-level domain name to the other two. Third-level domain names can be anything you like. In many cases the third-level name indicates the computer's purpose. For example, for a World Wide Web server the third-level name is www. A computer that sends and receives email might be named "email". When a third-level domain name is used the address could read like this www.tribuneindia.com. You may even add fourth-level domain names, fifth-level names, and even more. They are legal, but not attractive or easy to remember. Consider this: bhatia.circulation.transport.tribuneindia.com. Is that what you like?

Names such as these became a reality when names came to be in short supply and the naming wars began. The scenario is now changing. Many alternatives name systems are being evolved. One such system making waves is RealNames. Of course, RealNames is not the only player in the namespace competition, but it is the strongest. RealNames is an organisation comprising mainly search services. Microsoft has given the RealNames system conditional support saying it should add more review and discretion over how names are assigned to make sure the user experience is enhanced. How does it work? Well, it has an alternative system for reaching the Web sites that can potentially avoid the problems that the domain name system has suffered from. For instance, the RealNames keyword "Indian" will list several sites relevant for that keyword, rather than trying to take you to just one. A real benefit is that names can be region specific. This is how the organisation explains the working of the new system: If you enter "Ford" into AltaVista, then click on the RealNames link that appears, you will be taken to Ford's US Web site. That's because AltaVista uses the US RealNames database. In contrast, if you enter "Ford" into UKMax.com, a UK-specific search engine, the RealNames link takes you to Ford's UK web site. It's the same word, "Ford," but because your location is known, you get directed to the correct regional location.

It is too early to say that the domain name system is to vanish in the near future. But experts feel it will go extinct slowly. But what will be the substitutes? The domain names will make way for namespaces, which we will use to surf the web. The next generation more used to the existence of the Web than us will probably laugh at the oldies trying to navigate with suffixes like .com and .net. They will be using simple keywords to reach the site they want. The naming game is evolving and coming of age. Though we now enter yahoo.com to reach that site, the old IP system of numbers still works underneath to achieve that task. Only the DNS has made it simpler for us to navigate the Web. Similarly, in the coming years we will simply be typing a keyword rather than a full name and the namespace system will guide us to our destination site.