Domain Name vs URL: What's the Difference?

People use "domain name" and "URL" interchangeably, but they are not the same thing. A domain name is part of a URL, the way a street name is part of a mailing address. Knowing the difference matters when you are buying domains, configuring DNS, setting up redirects, or troubleshooting why a page is not loading.

This guide breaks down what each term means, how they relate to each other, and why the distinction matters for anyone managing a website. For the full picture of how domains work from registration through expiration, see the domain expiry guide.

What Is a Domain Name?

A domain name is a human-readable label that identifies a website. It is the part people remember, type into browsers, and print on business cards.

Examples of domain names:

• example.com
• wikipedia.org
• bbc.co.uk
• mail.google.com

Domain names exist because the internet actually runs on IP addresses, which are numerical identifiers like 93.184.216.34. Nobody wants to remember those numbers for every website they visit. Domain names provide a friendly alias that the Domain Name System (DNS) translates into the corresponding IP address behind the scenes.

Parts of a Domain Name

A domain name has a hierarchical structure, read from right to left:

Top-Level Domain (TLD). The last segment after the final dot. Common examples include .com, .org, .net, .io, and country-code TLDs like .uk, .de, .jp. The TLD is managed by a registry organization. Verisign manages .com. Public Interest Registry manages .org.

Second-Level Domain (SLD). The part immediately to the left of the TLD. In example.com, "example" is the second-level domain. This is the part you choose when you register a domain. It is your brand, your name, your identity on the web.

Subdomain. An optional prefix to the left of the SLD. In blog.example.com, "blog" is a subdomain. In mail.google.com, "mail" is a subdomain. Subdomains are created by the domain owner and do not require separate registration. You can create as many as you want under a domain you control.

Together, TLD + SLD form the "root domain" or "apex domain" (e.g., example.com). Adding a subdomain creates a fully qualified domain name (e.g., www.example.com).

Who Controls Domain Names?

Domain names are managed through a hierarchical system:

• ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) oversees the entire domain name system globally.
• Registries manage individual TLDs. They maintain the authoritative database of all domains under their TLD.
• Registrars are companies authorized to sell domain registrations. GoDaddy, Namecheap, Cloudflare, and Google Domains are registrars.
• Registrants are the people or organizations who register and use domain names. That is you.

When you "buy" a domain, you are actually leasing the right to use it for a set period (typically 1 to 10 years). You do not own it permanently. If you do not renew, the domain eventually becomes available for someone else to register. For more on how this process works, see domain registration lifecycle.

What Is a URL?

A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the full address of a specific resource on the internet. While a domain name identifies a website, a URL identifies a specific page, file, or resource on that website.

Here is a URL broken into its components:

https://www.example.com:443/blog/my-post?ref=twitter#comments

Each part serves a specific purpose:

Protocol (scheme). https:// tells the browser how to connect. HTTPS means the connection is encrypted. HTTP means it is not. Other protocols include ftp://, mailto:, and file://.

Subdomain. www. is a subdomain (optional, and increasingly omitted). Many sites treat www.example.com and example.com as the same thing, redirecting one to the other.

Domain name. example.com is the domain name. This is the part that gets looked up in DNS to find the server's IP address.

Port. :443 specifies which port on the server to connect to. Port 443 is the default for HTTPS, and port 80 is the default for HTTP. When using default ports, browsers hide this from the address bar.

Path. /blog/my-post identifies a specific page or resource on the server. The path is like a file system location, though modern web applications generate paths dynamically rather than mapping them to actual files.

Query string. ?ref=twitter passes parameters to the server. Query strings are used for tracking, filtering, searching, pagination, and application state. Everything after the ? is a query parameter.

Fragment (anchor). #comments tells the browser to scroll to a specific section of the page. Fragments are handled entirely by the browser and are not sent to the server.

Domain Name vs URL: The Key Differences

| | Domain Name | URL | |---|---|---| | What it identifies | A website | A specific page or resource | | Example | example.com | https://example.com/blog/my-post | | Contains protocol? | No | Yes | | Contains path? | No | Yes (can be just /) | | Used in DNS? | Yes | Only the domain part | | What you register | The domain name | Nothing (URLs are not registered) | | What you type casually | Often just the domain | The full address for specific pages |

The simplest way to think about it: a domain name is your website's identity. A URL is a specific location within (or on the way to) your website.

How Domain Names and URLs Work Together

When you type example.com into your browser's address bar, your browser constructs a full URL from it. It adds the protocol (https://), adds a trailing slash as the path (/), and sends a request to https://example.com/. The domain name is the starting point. The URL is what actually gets requested.

Here is the sequence:

1. You type example.com in the browser.
2. The browser constructs the URL https://example.com/.
3. DNS resolves example.com to an IP address (e.g., 93.184.216.34).
4. The browser connects to that IP on port 443 (HTTPS default).
5. The browser sends an HTTP request for the path /.
6. The server responds with the homepage content.
7. The browser displays the page and shows the URL in the address bar.

Every step after typing the domain name involves the full URL. The domain name is just the human-friendly entry point.

Subdomains, Root Domains, and URLs

This is where the terminology gets confusing for many people.

example.com is the root domain (also called the apex domain or naked domain).

www.example.com is a subdomain of example.com. So are blog.example.com, shop.example.com, and api.example.com.

Each subdomain can point to a different server, different application, or different part of the same application. From a DNS perspective, each subdomain is a separate record. From a URL perspective, they produce different URLs:

https://example.com/about
https://www.example.com/about
https://blog.example.com/about
https://shop.example.com/about

These are four different URLs pointing to potentially four different pages on four different servers, even though they all share the same root domain.

For domain registration purposes, you register the root domain (example.com). Subdomains are free to create and do not require additional registration. You configure subdomains through DNS records at your DNS provider.

Why the Distinction Matters

Domain Registration and Renewal

You register and renew domain names, not URLs. When people say "buy a URL," they mean "register a domain name." The URLs on your site are a function of your web server configuration, not your domain registration.

If your domain expires, every URL on that domain stops working. The domain is the foundation. For more on what happens when a domain expires, see what happens when a domain expires.

DNS Configuration

DNS operates on domain names, not URLs. You create DNS records for example.com and its subdomains. DNS does not know about paths, query strings, or fragments. If someone asks you to "point a URL to a server," what they actually mean is "create a DNS record for a domain or subdomain."

SEO and Search Engines

Search engines index URLs, not domain names. Google's index contains billions of individual URLs. Domain authority, backlinks, and rankings all apply at the URL level (though domain-level signals affect the URLs under that domain).

When you move a page from one URL to another, you need a redirect to transfer the SEO value. Moving an entire site to a new domain means redirecting every URL from the old domain to its equivalent on the new domain.

SSL Certificates

SSL certificates are issued for domain names (and subdomains), not for individual URLs. A certificate for example.com secures every URL under that domain. A wildcard certificate for *.example.com secures all subdomains. But you cannot get an SSL certificate for a specific URL path.

Sharing and Linking

When you share a specific article, product page, or resource, you share a URL. When you tell someone your website, you share a domain name. The URL is precise: it takes people to exactly the right page. The domain name is general: it takes people to your homepage.

Common Confusion

"I need to buy a URL." You mean you need to register a domain name. Once you have the domain, you create whatever URLs you want by publishing content at different paths.

"What's the URL of your website?" This usually means "what's your domain name?" The answer is example.com, not https://example.com/index.html.

"My URL expired." Your domain name expired. URLs do not expire independently. If the domain is active and the server is running, the URL works. If the domain expires, every URL on it stops working. To find out when any domain expires, see how to check domain expiry.

"I own this URL." You own (lease) the domain name. You control the URLs on your domain through your server configuration. But you do not "own" URLs in the way you register domain names.

"Change the URL of my website." This could mean several things. Changing the domain name requires registering a new domain and setting up redirects. Changing a page's URL path requires updating your CMS or server configuration. These are very different tasks.

Finding Your Domain's Registration Details

Since the domain is the foundation that every URL depends on, keeping track of your domain registration is essential. You can look up any domain's registration and expiration details through WHOIS, which is the public registry of domain ownership data.

To find who registered a domain, when it was registered, and when it expires, see find domain registrar. If you manage multiple domains, tracking all their expiration dates in one place prevents any of them from lapsing unexpectedly.