Building your website requires you to focus on a multitude of elements, including the domain name and URL. While both of them are responsible for connecting computers and servers to online locations, they are not the same. Jump into this article to discover the key differences between domain names and URLs.

Domain Name

You won’t be able to remember the overall IP address of any server. So, the domain name is a human-friendly part of the IP address. Periods or dots are used to segment the different parts of the domain name. The different parts within a domain name include the type of server, hostname, and top-level domain.

Uniform Resource Locator

The URL is the string that highlights the overall address of the web page. So, another name for the URL is the web address. You will have to enter the URL in the search bar to locate a website. The different parts of a URL include the method or protocol, port, hostname, and path. 

Key Differences Between the Domain Name and URL

Some aspects that can help you differentiate between a domain name and a URL include the following:

• Specificity

One significant distinction between URLs and domains is that URLs are specific, whereas domains are extensive. A URL refers to a single web page. Meanwhile, a domain refers to a collection of online pages that connect to create a full website. 

• Purchasing and Selling

An online registrar is a place for you to purchase and sell domain names. Typically, you can buy a domain name for a defined amount of time, usually one or two years. Most individuals buy domain names to use with their websites. But if you choose a suitable domain, you can purchase a sought-after domain name and sell it for a profit to another company. URLs cannot be bought and sold in the same way.

• Permanence

Domain names are permanent and held by a specific owner, while URLs are always short-term. URLs change whenever website owners make changes to their website’s structure or page titles. Therefore, a URL is far more likely to evolve than a domain name. You might also change a URL to help search engines and visitors find relevant pages and enhance website traffic.

• Operations

A domain name works alongside a domain name system, which includes DNS caching, a top-level domain, and an authoritative DNS server. But URLs incorporate a large number of other elements like parameters, domain names, parameters, path ports, and more.

Summing up

URL serves as a string of information offering the comprehensive address of a web page. But a domain name can be described as a user-friendly IP address extracted from the URL. Check out the text after the subdomain and before the first slash in the URL to find out the domain name.