A domain name locates an organization or other entity on the Internet.
For example, the domain name
www.footyshop.com.au
locates an Internet address for “footyshop.com.au” at Internet point 199.0.0.2 and a particular host server named “www”. The “com” part of the domain name reflects the purpose of the organization or entity (in this example, “commercial”) and is called the top-level domain name. The “.au” part of the domain denotes its location – Australia. The “footyshop” part of the domain name defines the organization or entity and together with the top-level is called the second-level domain name. The second-level domain name maps to and can be thought of as the “readable” version of the Internet address.