Note: On September 7, 2023 Squarespace acquired all domain registrations and related customer accounts from Google Domains. For more information about how this change affects Cloud Domains, seeCloud Domains feature deprecations,Renew an expired domain registration, andSquarespace purchase of Google Domains FAQ.

This page provides important terminology that applies to Cloud Domains.Review these terms to better understand how Cloud Domains worksand the concepts on which it is built.

For more information, see theCloud Domains overview.

Cloud DNS

Cloud DNS is a high-performance and resilient DNS hosting providerthat you can use with Cloud Domains topublish your domain names to the global DNS namespace. Fordetailed information about Cloud DNS concepts and importantterminology, see theCloud DNS overview.

DNS hosting provider

A DNS hosting provider is a company that maintains DNS name servers.

Caution: Google Domains as your Domain Name System (DNS) provider for your domains in Cloud Domains is retired, and some DNS functionality from Cloud Domains is no longer supported. For more information, seeCloud Domains feature deprecation.

If you choose Cloud DNS as your DNS provider,then Google is your DNS hosting provider. If you are using custom nameservers, then the company responsible for those name servers acts as yourDNS hosting provider.

domain ending or top-level domain (TLD)

A domain ending is the last label in a domain name, like.com.Thousands of endings exist, and each ending is controlled by aregistry. Customers of aregistrarpurchase domain names that are a single label plus the domain ending,such asgoogle.com.

Often, the domain ending is just a single label like.com, in which casethe domain ending is also the top-level domain (TLD). In some cases, aregistry controls a multi-label domain ending like.co.uk, and customerspurchase domain names one level below that, likegoogle.co.uk.While not always technically accurate, it is common to refer to allregistry-controlled domain endings as TLDs.

For a detailed explanation of TLDs, seeTop-leveldomain.

domain name

A domain name is a character string comprised of several parts calledlabels that are separated by dots to represent the domain hierarchy.Domain names have adomain ending corresponding to theirregistry operator. Domain names can be equivalentlywritten in eitherUnicode or Punycode.

Domain Name System (DNS)

The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical distributed databasethat stores IP addresses and other data and allows queries by name.To learn more about DNS, see theDNS overview page.

name servers

Name servers identify the location of your domain on the internet. A DNS nameserver stores DNS records for a domain name and responds with answers toqueries against its database. For a detailed explanation of name servers,seeName server.

premium domains

Premium domains are domains offered for sale or resale at a premium price.There are two kinds of premium domains:

• Aftermarket premium domains: Domains offered for resale by owners fora premium price. After the initial premium price, you can renew your domainsat the regular annual renewal price.
• Registry premium domains: Domains offered by the registry for apremium price. Usually, when you transfer, renew, restore, or add moreyears of registration to a domain, you're charged the initial premiumprice.

registrant

A registrant is the registered name holder of a DNS domain. A registrantholds therights to the domain for the duration of the registration period.Because a domain's registration can be renewed indefinitely (up to 10 yearsat a time), a registrant is often considered theowner of the domain.

registrar

A registrar is an organization that manages theregistrationof domain names for one or more of the DNSregistries.A registrar acts as an interface between aregistrant (owner) and a registry (database of domains).Registrars sell domain names, provide registration services, and offer othervalue-added services applicable to domains. For details about registrars,seeDomain name registrars.

For Cloud Domains, domain registrations are provided bySquarespace. The registrar of record is often Squarespace but might vary basedon the TLD. To determine the registrar of record for your domain, searchtheWHOIS database.

registration

Registration is the process through which a registrant registers a domainwith a DNS registrar. A registrant can register a domain for a period fromone to ten years. When the registration period expires, the registrant canrenew or extend the registration. The registrant must provide contactinformation to the registrar for inclusion in theWHOIS database.

To register a domain by using Cloud Domains, seeRegister adomain.To edit your domain registration settings, seeEditregistrations.

registry

A registry is a database that containsregistrantinformation for second-level DNS domains (google.com,example.com)beneath a given domain ending or TLD (.com). A registry cancontrol any domain ending and can allow you to register domains under thatdomain ending—for example,.co.uk andgoogle.co.uk.

A registry operator is an organization that maintains the administrativedata for one or more top-level or lower-level DNS domains. For example,VeriSign is responsible for several top-level domains, including the.com,.net, and.name domains. A registry operator is given authority for adomain throughICANN,a corporation responsible for managing functions that maintain the coreinfrastructure of the internet. For more details, seeICANN.

resource records

Resource records provide DNS-based information about the hardware andsoftware components that point to and support your domain (such as hosts,name servers, web servers, and email servers). For detailed informationabout resource records, seeRecords.

For a list of record types supported by Cloud DNS, seeSupported record types.

Unicode and Punycode

Within theDomain Name System, for historical reasons,domain names are stored inASCII.Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) that are normally written inUnicode are compressed into ASCII with a scheme calledPunycode.

Domain names expressed in Punycode start with the charactersxn--. Forexample, an IDN representation of the Unicodeexample.ελ isexample.xn--qxam in Punycode.

The Punycode and Unicode versions of a domain name are equivalent and usedin different contexts. For example, the name of eachRegistration resourceends in the Punycode version of the corresponding domain name. On the otherhand, in user-facing contexts, the domain name is generally displayed inUnicode for ease of use.

WHOIS database

The WHOIS database stores information about DNS domains, such as thefollowing:

• Registration contact information for registrant, administrator, andtechnical contacts
• The domain's registrar
• Creation, update, and expiry dates

The WHOIS protocol, which is a query and response protocol used for queryingdatabases that store details about registered domain users, is documentedinRFC 3912.

For details about WHOIS, see theICANN WHOIS page. You can look up registered domain names and associated details on theICANN WHOIS database.