Important Things To Remember While Choosing A Domain Name For Your Website:
Here are some important things you should remember while selecting a domain name for your website:
- Evaluate the purpose of your website. For example, you want to create a website for your business, plan for personal use, or create a website for your organization.
- You need to make sure that your websites domain name must be unique and not yet registered.The domain name should be easy to remember and not too long.
- Do not buy domain names that are similar to existing sites or what we call trademarked domain names.
- Avoid including numbers on domain names.
What Are Top Level Domains
In Domain Name System , there is a hierarchy of names. Top Level Domains are a set of generic names in the hierarchy COM, NET, ORG, EDU, INFO, BIZ, CO.UK, etc.
Example #1:
Google.com, Linux.org, Yahoo.co.uk
Notice that these domains end with a different extension ? These extensions are known as TLDs.
The official list of all top-level domains is maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority at the Root Zone Database. As of April 2018, there are 1,532 TLDs in total.
Some TLDs are commonly seen
BIZ, BR, CA, CN, CO, CO.JP, COM.SG, COM.MY, EDU, ES, FR, INFO, MOBI, TECH, RU, UK, US,
Some are less known of
AF, AX, BAR, BUSINESS, BID, EXPERT, GURU, JOBS, MOBI, TECH, ESTATE, WIEN, WTF, WOW, XYZ
While most of these TLDs are open for publics registration, there are strict regulations on certain domain registration. For example the registration of country code top level domains are restricted for the citizens of the corresponding country and the activities with such domains website are ruled by local regulations and cyber laws.
Certain extensions of these TLDs are used to describe the characteristics of the website like BIZ for businesses, EDU for education , ORG for public organization, and country code top level domain names are for locations.
ICANN publishes case studies on the usage of different generic TLD, check it out if this interests you.
What Are The Benefits Of Shared Hosting
The four main benefits from shared hosting are:
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Getting Started With Domain Names And Hosting
When it comes to registering your domain name and purchasing hosting youre going to have a few different options available to you. You can mix and match different providers, shop around for the best deal or feature set, or you purchase them both together and simplify the process.
Both approaches work entirely fine. It simply depends on what works best for you.
Some people prefer to keep their domains and hosting all under one roof, while others like to separate the two.
Why Do Companies Choose To Keep Whois Data Private
Companies might choose to keep WHOIS data private for any number of reasons, including:
- A home-based business that doesnt want or need the public to know its exact physical location or phone number.
- Some companies use WHOIS data to look for prospective customers. If your WHOIS data is private, you can avoid receiving these sales pitches and emails.
- Criminals can use WHOIS data for identity theft and other forms of fraud. Keeping the data hidden can help prevent this.
- Ahead of an upcoming merger, Company A takes ownership of Company Bs domain. By keeping the WHOIS data private, they keep observers from learning of the merger before its made public.
- Companies can choose to keep WHOIS data private for a variety of strategic reasons. For example, they may want to make it harder for competitors to see how many or which domains they own and use.
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Frequently Asked Questions About Web Hosting
After getting to know several important aspects of web hosting services, lets look at some commonly asked questions about website hosting.
Do I really need web hosting?
You need web hosting to store your web files and make your website available on the internet. In addition to that, purchasing a dedicated server is expensive and impractical.
Hosting your website on the web hosts servers lets you focus on more important matters, like producing great content and driving traffic to your website.
How much does web hosting cost?
The prices of web hosting services depend on the provider and the type of hosting you choose.
For instance, if you plan to create a blog , then a shared hosting plan should suffice. The average price of shared hosting plans ranges from $2 to $7/month.
- These are the best free web hosting services
Which web hosting is best?
The best web hosting for you relies on your budget, skill set, and the type of website you aim to build. For example, a large online store with thousands of visitors per month has different hosting needs than a portfolio website with less than a hundred visits.
- Also check out our roundup of the best video hosting
Lets see which web hosting is the best for you to get started with:
- Cloud hosting best value for money and best for large businesses
Difference Between Domain And Hosting
Categorized under Technology,Web Applications | Difference Between Domain and Hosting
A website is more than a collection of web pages and Web management is a variety of things. Web management includes designing the website, along with various administrative tasks such as web security and picking the right web hosting service. While a lot of things goes into making a website up and running, web hosting definitely tops the list. To help you better understand, we break hosting down with an analogy that you can easily understand. Imagine youre opening a new store, for which you need a name, a location, staff, and products. Even if one of these essential items is missing, your store cannot open. The same goes for a website.
The four basic elements required to get your website up and running are: the domain name, a web server, maintenance staff, and content. In the hosting world, the site name, otherwise known as the domain name, is the first thing thats need to be decided before anything else. For the potential customers, the first reference they have to a business or organizations online presence is its domain name. When a website starts gaining momentum, the domain name becomes a valuable entity. Thus, choosing a good domain name is a crucial decision for any business and it is mostly a marketing decision. So, its important to understand the difference between the two.
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How Domain Names Work
Internet addresses are technically IP Addresses. IP addresses are a long series of numbers that make no sense to humans. In fact, the very first places on the internet were accessible only by IP address.
So instead of typing in 192.168.1.1 to access a website, the website owner can register a domain that will route to that specific IP address.
When you register a domain name, you are leasing it from the Internet Corporation for Names and Numbers or ICANN for short. ICANN provides domains via approved registrars. Your registrar will be your domain host, but not your web host, in one way of saying it.
Though a domain name does not do anything on its own. It is like a phone number without a phone attached to it.
Registration provides you the right to point your domain wherever you want with nameservers.
You can tell it to redirect to another website But usually, youll want it to direct browsers to your websiteon your hosting account.
You can read more in What Is A Domain Name.
If We Keep Our Whois Data Private Is There Anything We Need To Know
Yes. If you keep your registration data private, you should offer some other way for the public to contact you. You can do this by publishing general contact information somewhere on your website. You can choose to include:
- Business contact information: A must-have for local businesses, but important for all, contact information helps customers and prospective customers get in touch.
- Webmaster/IT contact information: This makes it easy for visitors to report website problems, and have them go straight to your IT team
- Corporate identity: If your company owns multiple sites or brands, identifying the parent corporation on each lets visitors know when theyre on one of your sites.
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Here Are 6 Facts About Web Hosting:
Continuing to look at âwhat is web hosting vs domain?â Here are more differences to note.
Other essential details to note about web hosting vs domain names is that hosting is where your website files are physically stored, while your domain name is the address of the storage location. You canât create a website without purchasing a domain name. However, it is possible to have a domain name without creating a website.
What Are Country Code Top Level Domains
The full list of country code top-level domain extensions are :
.ac .ad .ae .af .ag .ai .al .am .an .ao .aq .ar .as .at .au .aw .ax .az .ba .bb .bd .be .bf .bg .bh .bi .bj .bm .bn .bo .br .bs .bt .bw .by .bz .ca .cc .cd .cf .cg .ch .ci .ck .cl .cm .cn .co .cr .cu .cv .cx .cy .cz .de .dj .dk .dm .do .dz .ec .ee .eg .er .es .et .eu .fi .fj .fk .fm .fo .fr .ga .gd .ge .gf .gg .gh .gi .gl .gm .gn .gp .gq .gr .gs .gt .gu .gw .gy .hk .hm .hn .hr .ht .hu .id .ie .il .im .in .io .iq .ir .is .it .je .jm .jo .jp .ke .kg .kh .ki .km .kn .kp .kr .kw .ky .kz .la .lb .lc .li .lk .lr .ls .lt .lu .lv .ly .ma .mc .md .me .mg .mh .mk .ml .mm .mn .mo .mp .mq .mr .ms .mt .mu .mv .mw .mx .my .mz .na .nc .ne .nf .ng .ni .nl .no .np .nr .nu .nz .om .pa .pe .pf .pg .ph .pk .pl .pn .pr .ps .pt .pw .py .qa .re .ro .rs .ru .rw .sa .sb .sc .sd .se .sg .sh .si .sk .sl .sm .sn .sr .st .sv .sy .sz .tc .td .tf .tg .th .tj .tk .tl .tm .tn .to .tr .tt .tv .tw .tz .ua .ug .uk .us .uy .uz .va .vc .ve .vg .vi .vn .vu .wf .ws .ye .za .zm .zw
Regulations on ccTLDs
For those users who are seeking to register a country-specific domain name option , a good portion of the registration process will be dedicated to determining whether or not the customer is a resident of that country and therefore legally permitted to purchase one of its country-specific top level domains . And that should hammer home a secondary point to users.
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Are There Any Free Web Hosts
Well, all that glitters is not gold. Yes, there are free web hosts the most popular among them being hosts such as 000webhost, InfinityFree, Google Sites, and AwardSpace but you should definitely think twice before using one.
If you are on a budget, you may find it tempting to try free web hosts. However, we cant recommend going down this road. Free web hosts offer limited storage capacity, bandwidth, and server speed. They are unstable and usually lack basic features such as email accounts and website installations.
They give clients unreliable servers which will ruin your websites chance of succeeding in todays highly competitive online space. Aside from that, free web hosts are likely to experience massive security breaches. So instead of opting for a free host, do yourself a favor and put your website in safe hands.
Always keep in mind that the most vital element of any successful website is a reliable web hosting service.
Purchasing Your Domain Name And Hosting Separately
Some people prefer to separate their domain names and hosting. This can make it easier if you ever decide to leave your hosting provider, as youll only have to migrate your domain names, too.
However, you might miss out on any short-term specials that many hosts offer when you bundle the two together. Plus, if youre having issues with your website, then youll have to deal with customer support across two companies, instead of one.
But, if those arent dealbreakers for you, then this approach might be right for you.
Heres how to do it.
For example, you might choose to purchase hosting through HostGator, while you pick up your domain name from a registrar like Domain.com.
There are dozens of different domain name registration services that you can choose from to change your web server. Once youve purchased your domain at a separate provider youll need to point the nameservers towards your server.
Once that change has gone into effect, your website will now be live.
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How To Get Started
How do you get started with domain registration, web hosting, and building a website?
Well it depends on what you want to do. There are a lot of options that you can mix together to create different setups. It can be confusing, but nearly all options boil down to three options: