Hosting your Website

Domain name registration is your first step for hosting a website

Domain name registration is your first step to get your own website with your own domain name. When I started my real engagement in the internet and realized the potential of the web for communication in 1999 it took me some time to understand the mechanism of websites, hosting websites, domains, domain hosting/ web hosting and web hotels and the web as such.

If you are rather new to establishing yourself on the web you might have similar kinds of speculation. So just quickly an explanation - jump it over if you are very familiar with these basic domain matters that are a precondition for hosting a website.

A domain example:
I have a name 'Jubiii' I would like to turn into a website. Accordingly I have registered the domain or domain name
jubiii.com

The web address of this domain or domain name is
www.jubiii.com

The full url or web address of the domain is
http://www.jubiii.com

But for communication the much easier formulation is www.jubiii.com because the browsers can easily now a days translate this shorter version of the domain address into the full one.

In fact you can reduce the address just to the domain name, here jubiii.com because in most cases that will work, too.

Still, for communication, you can use small or capital letters in your basic domain, like
Jubiii.com or
JUBIII.com
as this doesn't matter for the functionality of the domain.

But in case you want to communicate one of the pages in a website all that comes after your domain and a slash / is case sensitive. This means that these two urls will not refer to the same web page in the website:
jubiii.com/Photos
jubiii.com/photos

(often more has to be included after the word like photos, but that is too detailed technical information at the moment.)

When you make links you will have to use the full url,
http://www.jubiii.com .
When you want to make link in an email remember to write the full url, too, and it will turn into a hyperlink (an active link) for the receiver of the email.

The link text in a web page doesn't influence the address so you can write best web directory (even that isn't true!) and link to Jubiii.com . The active link text is useful for visitors to the website where they read the link (if the text is true) but also to the search engines that 'spider' or browse the web for links. They make use of the link text to 'understand' what a website / webpage is about.

Let us now go back shortly to the issue of domain registration. jubiii.com is called a 'top-domain' because it is registered as a 'dot com' domain .com . This kind of domain is standing for a commercial domain and was original the commercial domains for USA. But because of the dominance of USA in the establishing of the Internet and also in business and commercial aspects of websites and domain registration it has become THE top commercial domain, internationally.

Other top domains include

dot net (.net ) for domains for networks

dot org ( .org ) for domains for organizations

These domains have a similar official status as the dot com domains, but in practice the dot com domains are regarded as much more important and valuable. Everyone in the world can register one of these top domain names if they are available and if the name isn't infringing trademarks or other copyright restrictions. In the beginning the annual registration cost at least 35 USD but now it is possible to register domains for much less, see later.

In addition to these top domains each country has at least one national domain category. In some countries there are restrictions to whom are allowed to register domains in the national domain.

In addition there are a number of other international domains explained elsewhere in this website.

Before I say a few words about web hotels and domain hosting I should just add an important point. You cannot buy a domain name what ever kind of domain it is. You can just register a domain name. This means that you pay an annual fee to have the right to use the domain as a name for your website and as an address on the web.

When you try to register a new domain name at a domain registrar the first thing is that the domain registrar online check if the requested domain is available. You are in fact checking it as this process is automated and easily don online. If the domain is available you have to accept some legal restrictions and conditions and then you can register your new domain.

Hosting a website / web hotels

When you have ordered = registered your new domain you probably want to get a website online, i.e. hosting a website of yours. (I know many are investing in domains and just want to sit on them, but that is another case). You can do it short time after your domain registration or you can wait until you are ready and have time to build your website or have others to help you.

What you need to get online is to make an arrangement with a server that is connected to the internet. For most people the natural choice will be to contact a company that offers 'web hotels' or 'hosting your website'.

Web hotels are 'just' systems of servers connected to the internet that make it possible for people all over the world to write your web address (domain name) in their web browser like Microsoft´s Explorer and ask to see the homepage of your website.

If things work ok this request will load the homepage into the computer of the person who requested it. And from there the person can follow the links to the other parts of your website according to how you have constructed it.

When you have registered your domain with a registrar your domain hosting will be with that registrar as long as you pay the annual fee. But you can also move the domain hosting to another domain host.

Often you can have the web hotel with the same company or you can choose to have your website hosting with another company.

There are thousands of companies (and individuals) that offer server space in web hotels. Your choice shouldn't only be related to the price but too many other factors if you are serous about your online presence. These aspects are highlighted in other parts of DomainRegistrationHosting. So here you just get the short version of website hosting.

I am now using New Website for the majority of my top domain websites and it seems to work well (I started to collect them in December 2004 and afterwards initiated the transfer process to New Website. But for my big photo website I am using Powweb and Powweb is now also available for multi hosting of domains and websites and it is much cheaper, and giving lots of space and traffice with all bells and whistles. In the future I migh concentrate all my sites at Powweb.

Important aspects of chosing a webhost are: how much space you will have for your web pages. If you mainly use text and a few graphics 20 MB will go very far. But if you like pictures like I do you will probably be happy with much more.

One thing is the amount of space for your uploaded files on the server of your web host / web hotel, another thing is if the company has limitations of the traffic and charges you extra if the traffic surpasses the limit of the agreement.

At New Website I have unlimited web space and unlimited traffic and that is nearly too good to be true. But until now it works just fine for my many websites even if it price wise is a discount web hotel.

A basic aspect of the quality of your web host is the 'up-time' because internet servers are delicate 'creatures' that easily can give troubles, and if the server is down for maintenance your website will not be visible unless your web hotel company has a function with back up servers that take over the duty. Immediate attention of service technicians is equally important. Many web hotels claim up-times of 99,9 % but that is easily to write and more complicated for us to control.

If you only go for one website you will probably also like to make use of your website domain as the basic for your email. All web hotels are servicing you with webmail too.

With the above example of Jubii I could have an email like
soren@jubiii.com or in fact what ever name or letters in front of the sign @ as I have full control of that when I own = have registered the Jubiii.com domain.

Some will even purchase a specific domain to use it as a 'natural' or fun part of their personal email. I have for example the domain breiting.com because my name is Soren Breiting and I could therefore have a fine personal email address mirroring my name completely with
Soren@breiting.com

(Remark, that Soren can be written in the email as soren or Soren - it doesn't give any difference in the email address).

Just for your information I can tell that I am not using soren@breiting.com as my email at the moment. And if so I should be very careful not to publish it in that form on a webpage because some unpleasant people 'harvest' automatically published email addresses and sell them for others to spam us all.

Back to the quality of the web hotel.

The service of the web hotel is very, very important. If you have any request or problems, will they respond quickly and adequate or do you have to wait for weeks to get help. Is the help online or also by phone? etc.

And finally do they deliver good statistics so you can follow the success of your online efforts including helping you will generating traffic and so on.

As I mentioned I use New Website for many, many websites because New Website offers multiple domain hosting to a very competitive price, and they are also having web hotel solutions for just one website, but I haven't used this part of their service.

For a one website solution I use SiteBuild. It is lead by the famous web entrepreneur Ken Evoy. It isn't as discounted as New Website, seen immediately, but it is a fantastic help to anyone who will start to get online and be sure to avoid all the pitfalls and get a really successful website. You get so many functions on top of your web hotel function and they are shown here: SBI compared to other offers.

The information you get about Site Build is mainly showing how common people have succeeded turning their hobby or other interest into a good small business but according to my experience the support Site Build It provides is probably the best help anyone can get, to be sure to be successful online.

At the moment I am preparing to move my biggest website A-Z Fotos over to SiteBuildIt because of the service and many useful functions and not least because I will then have unlimited space for my photos and unlimited monthly traffic, too, for a very reasonably annual fee, including the annual fee for the domain name.

Even without wanting the SBI solution you can learn some basic mechanisms of online success at this overview page of Site Build It Info centre.

Soren Breiting

More about hosting a website:

Information on Domain Names: Multiple domain hosting, Domain parking, Sub domains, WhoIs Record, Domain Renewal

by Priyanka Agarwal

It’s been two years since John started his online business. He is very much satisfied with his current web host whose services he acquired one year ago. Today John is relaxing in his chair and thinking about the initial days when he spent many hours on the Internet collecting information related to web hosting. Like him there are many John’s out there who are in search of information everyday, visiting this and that website hoping to find the most illuminating advice. The problem is that common topics of interest can be found on most of the websites whereas other relevant issues are not dealt with everywhere. This article is going to touch on one of those areas: various concerns related with domain names.

What is multiple domain hosting?

Many times you will see that a web host offers multiple domain hosting. In simpler words it means that on buying an account you will have the ability to get multiple websites. For instance, if the plan provides you with five domain names, you can use one domain for your website and you will still have four domain names leftover to use. The advantage of this scenario is that you can resell these four domain names to your clients.

What is Domain Parking?

If you are planning to build up a website and have decided on a name for it you then must purchase that domain name from a domain registrar: i.e. your domain name gets placed on a name server so that you can use it later on. This is known as domain parking. Even if your website content is not ready, it’s better to park your desired domain name. Otherwise, it might be possible that in future somebody else acquires that particular domain name.

What are sub domains?

Sub domains are ‘third level’ domains in the sense that they are used solely to organize your website content. They are simply folders under your root directory, but to access them a special URL is used.

For instance, http://www.m6.net is a regular URL without a sub domain.
http://features.m6.net is an URL with the sub domain name: "features".
Here the:
.net: is the first level domain,
m6: is the second level domain,
features: is the third level domain

For how long does a domain name belong to you?

Generally when you register a domain name it is registered for a minimum of one year. However, you can register it for more years, as there is no hard and fast rule as such.

What is Domain Renewal?

After one year you need to renew your domain name so that your website doesn’t get lost. Generally when your domain is about to expire your domain registrar will send you a reminder mail regarding the domain renewal.

What happens when your domain name expires?

When your domain name expires you can renew it within one month. If you don’t renew it in this period it goes into a redemption phase. It stays in this redemption phase for 15 to 30 days before it is then available for purchase again at a normal price. Getting a domain name out of redemption phase is like buying fifty domains as it can cost around $200!

How to find out the owner of a domain name?

To find out the owner of a domain name, use the WhoIs search tool on the Internet .For E.g. Go to http://centralops.net/co/ and type the domain name under Domain Dossier. It will show you the name of the registrant/domain’s owner/web host.

What is WhoIs record for domain names?

WhoIS record is a domain name search engine/Internet program where users can enter an Internet entity (e.g. a domain, a network, some hosts) and it will give detailed information on the domain registrar, the owner of the domain, and respective DNS records.

About The Author
Priyanka Agarwal
Hosting evangelist
http://www.m6.net (Opens in new window)

So you see, hosting a website is a simple as well as a rather complicated issue to deal woith. I hope this website will be a good and independent guide for you for your urgent search for 'hosting a website' of yours.