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The eight tentacled cephalopod provides an apt analogy for how a domain name on the Internet works. Just as an octopus has several arms that connect it to the world at any one time, so a domain is connected to the Internet in several ways. As Elise Kendall of Web123, a technology website, points out, registering a domain is akin to the rental of an octopus. 

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Octopus Domain Analogy
The domain name registrar Web 123 had developed an analogy that likens the octopus to a domain. The idea is that the domain isn't complete within itself, but it must also connect to other anchor points to be a part of the Internet. The arms of an octopus allow it to grip the ocean floor and maintain its position, so the relationships of a domain to a domain name server, email server, file server and other online tools will allow a domain to function, o r not.

Domain Name
The Internet is primarily browsed through the use of domain names. A domain is a text-based Internet location such as Google.com or Microsoft.com. However, computers connect through numeric addresses, known as Internet protocol addresses, that are a series of numbers. For example, one of the IP addresses that leads to Google.com is: 74.125.224.72. A domain name server translates the text of Google.com into the numbers and allows browsing websites without having to memorize numeric codes. But the domain doesn't just have to point to a website, it can stretch its tentacles to several different resources online.

Email
Every email message is routed through a domain. Everything that comes before the "@" symbol is the unique address for an individual, but everything after is the domain name. Similarly to how the domain allows access to websites without the need to memorized lists of numbers, a domain that is connected to an email server allows people to send email to recipients at that domain and have it delivered. But the octopus isn't correctly grounded, the domain won't point to the email server and the email won't be delivered.

Sub-Domains
The largest category of domains on the Internet is top-level domains. These are the two or three letters that come after the "dot" in a domain name. The most common is COM, for commercial; schools will use EDU and government offices will use GOV. After the top level domain is the domain for a site, like Google.com, but there can be numerous sub-domains connected to the main name. So the mapping site for Google is found at Maps.Google.com, which is a sub-domain of Google.com. As a sub-domain, it can still reach out tentacles to many different places on the Internet, including email addresses and file servers, but all of that happens within the larger, main domain.

Domain Name Mapping and Topology
Cornell University created a project to generate domain name topology called Project Octopus. Because of the many tentacles each domain generates, the appearance of a topology for the domains looks very much like the eight-legged swimmer. Additionally, there is a free, open-source software package called Octopus, which is a domain name mapper. It performs a similar function to Project Octopus in that it offers a representation of all the connection points that a domain has to the Internet. Mapping tools are helpful when a domain is being transferred so that all of the connections can be remapped correctly.