Protecting Against the Vulnerabilities of the Internet

Understanding the organization and structure of web site domains and URLs is vital to helping protect your web site and also making sure that you are maximizing your opportunities for good search positioning.

ALL ABOUT IP ADDRESSES

An IP (Internet Protocol) address is used to represent a physical piece of hardware like a laptop, a router, a printer or a tablet that connects to the Internet. Any physical hardware that must connect to the internet has an IP address. They are not entirely random and they are assigned by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) a division of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit public benefit corporation. An IP address is a series of four numbers each separated by a dot. For example 101.188.67.134 would be an IP address. Routers often have IP addresses that start with 192.168. If you want to find out your device’s IP address, just search for "what is my public IP Address?". Of course you would not want to share your IP address as that would give someone the opportunity to hijack your computer. This also makes it easy to create a Denial of Service attack by flooding your computer with emails for example. Common forms of protection against someone obtaining this information include using a firewall, or setting up a virtual private network (VPN) which encrypts data before sending it.

A LOOK AT URLS AND REGISTRATION

Locations on the internet use names rather than numbers as humans prefer language to strings of digits. A web site resides on a server (which has an IP address), and the domain name is matched to that IP address, satisfying both human and machine. Language is used with an internet browser to find specific web site locations.

A URL consists of three basic parts:

The protocol - [ https:// ] Name.com, which stands for HyperText, Transfer Protocol, Secure

The domain name - https:// [ Name ] . com, web site name, also called second level domain

The top level domain - https://Name [. com ] (also known as the general top level domain or gTLD)

A computer IP address gives the user a home from which to access the Internet whereas a URL (Universal Resource Locator) gives the user access to various locations around the Internet. When developing a web site it must be given a name (the part of the URL before the dot) and an IP address is assigned to that URL by the web server associated with hosting the web site. Generally the domain registrar will assign the IP address to a Domain Name Server (DNS) and that server will be used to manage the web site content.

THE ROLE OF THE URL AND TLDS

Domain names are a proxy for the IP address to give web sites a memorable address. It’s important to be strategic about your web site name and TLD. Years ago, there were only a handful of TLDs available and .com, which stands for "commercial" made it the most popular TLD. As more people found competition for their company names, new TLDs were added. In addition non-US companies needed designators for their country-specific businesses. The net effect is that ICANN added a whole lot more TLD’s to represent other types of functions including .academy, .lawyer, .space and so on.

The name of your web site becomes your de facto Internet brand. For example, if your business is renting Bounce Houses then BounceHouse.com could be an option as your domain name. Typing that name into your browser reveals that web site already exists. Checking under a different TLD, BounceHouse.Party turns out is already owned as well. However BounceHouse.Fun is available. Each of these variations represents the company a little differently and also affects any work you do to improve search engine optimization. A note of caution is to check if the name you want is trademarked. If it’s in a similar business and serving a similar demographic you could be in violation of trademark laws. In the early days of the internet, domain traders tried to buy up popular trademarked company names (Ford, Apple, etc.) as domains and ICANN very quickly ruled against the practice. Conversely, if your company name has a long-standing trademark, you may be able to force the company to transfer the domain to you. ICANN has an arbitration panel set up for these occurrences. Another approach is to see if the company might be interested in abandoning their URL for a reasonable fee. You can also buy up potentially competing URLs just to take them off the market. Your domain registrar can help with some of these issues and also will give you options on server partitioning, uptime guarantees and firewalls. All of which are critical to your on-line presence.

STAYING ON TOP

Maintaining a web site is a full-time operation and though the rules sometimes move slowly, they do move. It is a balancing act between protecting your intellectual property, good search engine positioning and fending off cyberattacks. Knowing how the "nuts and bolts" of your site works is a starting point to making good decisions that are strategic and create a strong on-line brand.