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So what are hosting services, what do they do and are they different to registering your domain? I encounter this question a lot and the short answer is yes, they are very different. When you register a domain name you are paying a fee for the exclusive right to use the domain. A web host or website host on the other hand is required if you intend to use it as they provide the necessary servers to display your web page and handle your emails. If you dont know how to make a website you will also require a web designer.
At this point I will also take the opportunity to state that you dont need to have a web page for your domain if you dont want one, you can use it simply for emails. Conversely if you just want to display a webpage you dont need to have email addresses associated with the domain either. In fact, if you register a domain but dont have immediate use for it you dont have to do a single thing with it, domains in this state are often referred to as parked domains.
Lets say we registered the domain example.com and our intention is to use it to promote our shoe business, Example Shoes, through a website and to receive enquiries by email. Sales, marketing and manufacturing departments of Example Shoes also want to enjoy the ability to communicate with each other via email. Lets examine the steps that would be taken to get Example Shoes online.
A quick survey of Example Shoes staff proved that none of them knew anything about HTML or how to write a webpage (a webpage is what you are reading now) so a web designer was engaged to create a website for Example Shoes. As the website was fairly simple, an introductory page describing the company, a product page showing examples of Example Shoes current products, a new products page showcasing the companies latest offerings, a page showing a list of current retailers and a contact page for wholesale enquiries the website was written in HTML. There are several different languages that web pages can be written in, ASP, HTML and PHP just to name a few and each one lends itself to particular roles well. HTML is used to create a very search engine friendly page that doesnt change however PHP and ASP can be used for online shops and more interactive sites of that nature. When you are seeking a web host you should ensure that their web server supports the language that the page was written in.
The Example Hosting company was selected to host the web page and provide email services. Like most hosting companies HTML was supported by their webserver so this was not a problem. An account was created by Example Hosting for Example Shoes, a virtual host was created on the hosts webserver and they were given FTP details to provide to the web designer so that he could upload their webpage directly to the host. A list of email addresses was taken by the hosting company and these email accounts created on their mailserver for Example Shoes to use. DNS zonefiles were created by Example Hosting on their nameservers and Example Shoes were advised to go into the management page of their domain and change the nameservers to ns1.examplehosting.com and ns2.examplehosting.com. The technical support department of Example Hosting assisted over the telephone in configuring their customers mail settings in Outlook and the website and email was up and running. Now that all might seem a little confusing so lets look at it step by step.
Engage the services of a Web Designer if you know nothing about making web pages and it is a business website. Most of us dont know a great deal about making web pages so it is nothing to be ashamed about. Your web page is your face to the world on the internet and its appearance will determine to a fair extent if people will be prepared to deal with you. Try to impart on the web designer what you require and what look you feel is appropriate. As it is being constructed tell them definitively what you would like to change and be constructive with them, they are not mind readers and telling them it needs more zazz without being more specific is a sure fire way to get a few extra hundred dollars on your web design bill. On the other hand, if the website is a hobby for fun or for learning go grab yourself a book on web design and go for it!
Selecting a Webhost presents so many choices with so many hosting companies out there trying to get your business. There are different types of hosting available as well. Our example above depicts a company that is prepared to offer a reasonable level of service and caters more for those who are not familiar with the mechanics of webhosting. Their style of hosting is a managed approach with an accent on customer service and you would expect to pay a little more for their services. Other companies have a more self serve approach and these appeal to those who are familiar with how hosting works. They rely on a higher degree of automation for their signup process and you manage your domain yourself via a web interface. This style of hosting is cheaper but support may be a little more limited.
The host creates your webspace on their webserver. A webserver is a computer on the internet that displays your website for you. It has software installed on it so that when someone requests your webpage with a web browser DNS directs their request to that computer which reads your webpage off its hard drive and sends a copy of the webpage back to person who requested it. They can then see it displayed in their web browser. The webserver must have a copy of your web page on its hard drive so that it can send copies of it to other people. You would usually use FTP (file transfer protocol) to upload the website to the webserver. FTP is easy to use but most web designers are happy to upload your page for you once they have finished making it.
Email addresses are configured on the hosts mailserver. A mailserver is much like a webserver in that it is a computer connected to the internet that runs a program that allows it to send and receive emails. The email addresses must be created on the mailserver for them to work and to collect your mail you would need a valid username and password for the particular mailbox you are trying to collect mail from. Your email client (eg outlook) should be configured so that it then collects the mail that has been received on your behalf by the mailserver.
DNS or nameservers are the backbone of the internet in some ways. When you type a website into the address of your web browser, say www.example.com, what your typing in is a comparitively human friendly name. All computers on the internet actually have a numerical address like 192.168.254.28 as an example and this is address is unique to that particular server, no other computer in the world can have that address and it can be considered to be much like a street address, allowing other computers to uniquely identify that particular server. Domain Name Servers provide a translation between the human friendly name that people understand and the servers real address which computers understand. So in our fictitious example example.com have changed their nameservers in their domain management to their webhosts so that when someone wishes to view that web page and have typed in www.example.com they are referred to Example Hosts nameservers who then reply with the webservers IP address 192.168.254.28 and their computer knows to go to that address to see Example Shoes web site. If you want to send Example Shoes an email a similar process takes place to locate the address of their mail server via MX (mail exchanger) records so that the mailserver you use knows where to send your correspondence.
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