The article How Web Servers and the Internet Work discusses the concept of domain names. "Howstuffworks.com" is a domain name. The com portion of the name is called the top-level domain name. There is a very small set of generic top-level domain names, which you will probably recognize:

• com - for commercial endeavors
• org - for non-profit organizations
• net - for network providers
• mil - for military organizations
• gov - for government organizations
• edu - for educational organizations

IANA, the Internet Assigned Numbers Association, provides world-wide management of the top-level domain names.

Here are some interesting links:

Creating a Site? If you are thinking about creating a Web site and are looking for a company that can reserve your domain name or host your site, see this Question of the Day for information on the entire process!

• How Web Servers and the Internet Work
• How Web Pages Work
• How Internet Infrastructure Works
• IANA
• Domain Name System Structure and Delegation
• The International Internet Address and Domain Name System
• List of all country codes
• DomainStats.com - statistics on all domain name registrations worldwide
• Hobbes' Internet Timeline