In the mid to late 1980’s when the internet was still in its infancy there were several protocols put into place by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) that would provide uniformity to the internet as it grew. These protocols have allowed the internet to be scaleable and grow at the phenomenonally rapid rate it has. One of the most important of these protocols was the establishment and implementation of the domain name system.

The domain name system provides a way for every entity that is connected to the Internet such as a computer, web server and any other resource to have its own unique identification and place in the Internet framework. At its core these identifications are all numeric not character based. Domain names as most people think of them were brought into existence in order to make it easier on people to remember and keep track of. One key element of the Domain Name System is to translate domain name into the required numeric identities.

While the domain name system is hierarchial in nature if it were put into illustrative form it would look very similar to a diagram of a family tree. Much like you have a specific place on your own family tree every fully qualified domain name has its own particular place in the domain name system hierarchy as well.