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On the Internet, websites are like the houses and buildings. Domain names are the addresses to those structures.
While it does get a little more complicated than the above illustration, it is helpful to think of the Internet in those terms.
Key terms you should know:
Internet - The collective whole of networked computers across the globe. This includes the World Wide Web, email, FTP and other protocols.
World Wide Web - a portion of the Internet where most websites reside. It is graphically capable and is supported by such languages as HTML and CSS.
URL - Universal/Uniform Resource locator - this is the complete unique address of a website on the World Wide Web. It is made up of three components: the protocol, the host type and the host name. HTTP:// is the protocol. WWW is the host type. example.com is the host name (domain name). Put them together to get: http://www.example.com
HTTP - Hypertext transfer protocol. The protocol of the World Wide Web.
Top Level Domains - the suffix on the end of the domain name proper: .COM, .NET, .ORG, .BIZ, etc.
Second level domains - the name portion of a domain. In example.com, .com is the top level domain and "example" is the second level domain.
Subdomains - These could be called third level domain names. They are attached as prefixes to the second level domain. In news.example.com, "news" is the subdomain.
Domain Name - The registered domain name with the attached protocol: www.example.com
Registered Domain Name - the second level and top level domain put together: example.com
ccTLD - country code Top Level Domain Names Examples: .us, .de, .es
Domain Registrar - a company that registers domain names for individual users.
DNS - Domain Name System - The system by which domain names are translated into IP Addresses.
IP Address - a number representing the "address" of a network or a computer.
ICANN - Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. This organization manages the DNS.
