Most people will see a website name and make an immediate assumption about where it “lives”. For example, where do you think the webpages for www.independent.vu originates? The last bit of a website address is used to denote its country of origin (“.vu” for Vanuatu, in the example). However, websites can actually live just about anywhere in the world.
The Independent has a Vanuatu-based domain name (or website address), registered with an organisation that has been given exclusive responsibility for managing and maintaing the “.vu” global Top Level Domain or gTLD. Telecom Vanuatu have a monopoly control over “.vu”, including who can register what name and what prices they charge for the privelege. But all you get is the rights to a name – TVL only maintain records that say who the name belongs to, and where all the details for its internet services can be found.
A domain name relates to more than just a website. It also relates to email addresses (a mail server), and can be split up into multiple sub-domains (fictional examples would be news.independent.vu, sport.independent.vu and politics.independent.vu). All of these details are kept in “nameservers”, which are simply webservers with databases that match names to numbers. Continuing with the example, “www.independent.vu” is configured with an IP address of 70.86.13.34 (the IP address is the internet equivalent of a phone number).
So anyone who types “independent.vu” into their browser is first of all requesting a match for that name to its IP address. Everyone in Vanuatu asks TVL for that match, and in this example TVL forward the request to the American nameservers they have in their list. The nameservers send back the IP address, and the browser then heads off to that IP address to get the webpage.
It is this separation of names and numbers that allows a Vanuatu-based name to match up with a USA-based number (in The Independent's case). The owner of the domain name can configure the matching number to be anywhere – wherever the best deals on webhosting can be found, or the best services and facilities. Websites are truly global citizens that can setup home anywere in the world, and move to anywhere else very quickly and easily.
Thus, when you visit The Independent's website, everything you see is coming from a USA webserver. Send an email to The Indepedent's news team, and it heads off to a mailbox in the States. If you visit merlinpacific.net, you 'go' to the States, but go to merlinpacific.biz and you see exactly the same website coming from Malaysia.
The practical use for this should be fairly clear – you can register an internet name in any country, but you still have a global choice about where you put any related web services. Register a Vanuatu domain, and if you are not happy with the local webhosting choices, you are free to choose any other country. Register a “.com” name but need to avoid US regulations because you are not servicing that country, you are free to put the website in a more friendly jurisdiction.
Questions and comments to - Merlin Pacific IT provide effective & efficient business IT. Discuss this or any other IT topic via email with VIGNET (Vanuatu Internet User Group) - register free at http://tinyurl.com/zcusl
