If you are running Windows, I can easily explain how all of this works. First of all, you have disk space containing your files and folders - this is your stored content (website content is what appears in the browser window when you access your website). The Internet doesn't know where to find your content, and so it needs a pointer. This is like a Windows shortcut - you have the files in one place, but you can have a shortcut icon on the desktop, or wherever.

On the Internet, the shortcut pointer is called a Uniform Resource Locator, or URL. This is what you type into a browser when you want to access a particular website. The default URL for a given website is an IP address. An IP address is a series of numbers and dots that the Internet uses to find your content. An example of an IP address is '217.69.34.167' - we won't bore you with a breakdown of how the Internet uses it to find your computer!

Clearly, an IP address is not very easy for most human beings to remember, so Domain Name Services (DNS) were set up to map domain names (e.g. 'internetgremlin.com') to IP addresses. Designated computers, called DNS servers, act as ushers to show the Internet where to find the computer matching a given domain name. You can type http://www.internetgremlin.com or http://217.69.34.167 into a browser - either format is acceptable. This also works with e-mail addresses.

Because we are dealing with pointers, many domain names can point to a single disk space. Thus, you could register lots of domains and have them all point to one website. Also, you can forward all mail sent to <anything>@<yourdomain>.com to <you>@<yourISP> - this gives a more professional image.