What's the difference between a host name, a domain name and a fully qualified domain name (FDQN)?
A fully qualified domain name (FQDN) contains both a host name and a domain name. For a landing page, the fully qualified domain name usually represents the full URL or a major portion of the top-level address.
In looking at a fully qualified domain name, the host name typically comes before the domain name. The host name represents the network or system used to deliver a user to a certain address or location. The domain name represents the site or project that the user is accessing.
One example is the use of various networks to access educational websites. Typically, the domain name will consist of the identifier for a specific school’s web domain, along with the top-level .edu suffix. For example, the domain name for America University would be americauniversity.edu. The host name would consist of either "www" where the global internet is the host, or some proprietary network name that represents the host – for example, if the school uses a custom internal network called "myAUnet" then "myAUnet" would be the host name.
In connecting to a host, using the fully qualified domain name shows where the user wants to go. A DNS server can resolve the host name to an IP address. Although there is some syntactical tolerance built into the use of a fully qualified domain name, generally, a user can have errors or problems if the domain name is not clearly and completely entered.
Tags
Written by Techopedia Staff

At Techopedia, we aim to provide insight and inspiration to IT professionals, technology decision-makers and anyone else who is proud to be called a geek. From defining complex tech jargon in our dictionary, to exploring the latest trend in our articles or providing in-depth coverage of a topic in our tutorials, our goal is to help you better understand technology - and, we hope, make better decisions as a result.
More Q&As from our experts
- What does the mobile network state mean?
- With more big data solutions moving to the cloud, how will that impact network performance and security?
- What is the difference between cloud computing and web hosting?
Related Terms
- Domain
- Base URL
- DNS Record
- DNS Server
- Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
- Windows Internet Naming Service
- Distributed Computing System
- Radio Frequency Identification Tag
- Android
- Smartphone
Related Articles
Tech moves fast! Stay ahead of the curve with Techopedia!
Join nearly 200,000 subscribers who receive actionable tech insights from Techopedia.
- The CIO Guide to Information Security
- Robotic Process Automation: What You Need to Know
- Data Governance Is Everyone's Business
- Key Applications for AI in the Supply Chain
- Service Mesh for Mere Mortals - Free 100+ page eBook
- Do You Need a Head of Remote?
- Web Data Collection in 2022 - Everything you need to know