ABN (Australian Business Number)

An ABN demonstrates that your business is registered and operates in Australia. The ABN acts as verification for domain registrars that you are eligible to use a .au domain, which is reserved for Australian-based entities or those with a strong connection to Australia.

auDA

Australia’s not-for-profit domain authority. The regulator and registry for all .au domains.

Authorisation code

Another name for your _Domain password_.

Auto-renewal

Domain renewal that you don’t need to do yourself. Rather than go through a checkout just to retain your domain, auto-renewal makes the purchase for you. You receive reminder emails ahead of time, and a confirmation afterwards.

Bandwidth

The amount of data that can be sent through a network connection in a period of time. Bandwidth is usually stated in bits per second (bps), kilobits per second (Kbps), or megabits per second (Mbps).

ccTLD

Country code top-level domain. Every country has a two-letter ccTLD. Australia's is `.au`.

CNAME record

A type of DNS record that specifies a `canonical name`, which is another domain that defines the right IP address for the current one. The record effectively says `rather than look for an IP address here, go and look at this other domain's records`. One example is to relate a subdomain (like `sub.example.com`) to the IP address of the main domain (`example.com`).

DNS (Domain name system)

The domain name system translates between domain names that humans understand, like `chirpydomains.au`, and IP addresses, which are strings of numbers (and sometimes letters) that machines understand.

DNS record

A small amount of information that relates to your domain. DNS records do important things like connecting your domain name to the right servers for your website and/or email. Specific types of DNS record include A and AAAA records, CNAME records, and TXT records.

Domain Name

Domain names are unique names you can register to use as an address for your website and email, e.g. chirpydomains.au. Domain names consist of a top level, e.g. `.au, often a second level, e.g. the `.com` in `.com.au`, and always a third level that contians the actual name, e.g. `chirpydomains`.

Domain password

Domain passwords are not the password you use to log into Chirpy Domains. Also known as an authorisation code, or auth code, your Domain password “unlocks” access to your Domain for some actions - most importantly, when transferring between providers. There is a Domain Password recovery tool operated by auDA.

Firewall

Security procedures and software that protect a LAN (local area network) or computer from hackers trying to gain access.

FTP

File Transfer Protocol. A program for transferring files between your computer and a server. FTP is most commonly used for managing website files.

HTTP

Abbreviation for Hypertext Transfer Protocol. A standard used by browsers and servers to transfer text, images, sound, video, and other files across the Web.

IP address

IP addresses are used by machines to identify servers and other devices that are connected to the internet. IPv4 addresses consist of four numbers separated by dots (e.g. 192.0.2.1). IPv6 addresses are longer, with colons rather than dots, and can include letters. (e.g. 2001:db8:3333:4444:CCCC:DDDD:EEEE:FFFF).

Name Server

A name server (or nameserver) is a server connected to the Internet that determines where different types of requests should be directed. Name servers store and serve the records that relate your domain name to your website’s IP address.

Registrar

A company that’s accredited to work directly with auDA to register and update `.au` domains on behalf of customers. Registrars have to meet auDA’s conditions and technical requirements. Not every domain retailer is a registrar - most are resellers.

Registration period

The number of years you secure your domain for.

Renewal

As your Domain reaches the end of its registration period, you have the exclusive option to renew it, i.e. to retain ownership. Also see auto-renewal.

Reseller

A Domain retailer that is not a registrar, but instead acts as a middleman between a registrar and customers. There can be multiple resellers in a single supply chain.

Server

A computer permanently connected to the Internet. There are different types of servers including name servers (see above) and web servers, which store websites.

Subdomain

A domain with two separate parts before the TLD. If `example.au` is the domain, `this.example.au` would be a subdomain.

TLD

Top-level domain. This comes after the last dot in a domain, for example `.au`.

Transfer

To move a Domain from one retailer to another, while retaining your ownership of it. You can easily transfer domains to Chirpy Domains.

Traffic

Data transferred between a server and the computers and devices that request data from it. Traffic is generally measured in megabytes or gigabytes. (Also see: bandwidth)

URL

Abbreviation for Uniform Resource Locator. A browser uses addresses to locate sites and pages on the Web. These addresses are called URLs, and they contain Domains like `chirpydomains.au`.