The Simplest Way To Understand Domain Names, Web Hosts And Their Relationship

[Website is just like a house]

What's a domain name? Is it the only thing you need to have your own website?

Unless you're talking about services like Blogspot where they handle everything from getting a domain name (you get YourName.blogspot.com) and hosting your webpage, you don't actually own the website (Google owns it) and they have the right to take it down anytime. Even if you're happy with that, why settle with YourName.blogspot.com while you can have www.YourName.com?

This article tries to explain, in simple terms, on the two most important things to have your website up and running.
- Domain name
- Web Host

Domain name is just an address

In the real world: 123, George Street points to where your house is located.

In the internet world: www.YourName.com points to where your website is.

When you own the domain name, you only own the rights to use the address, it means nothing if you do not have a website; Just like having the address plate 123, George Street, it's pointless if you don't actually have a house!

But first, you'll need a land to build your house.

Web Hosts (or Web Hosting Company) is the land

These companies have servers which connect to the internet 24/day. It is the place where you rent some space in the servers' harddisk to store your website data, so that anyone in the world will be able to access your website. It's like renting the land to build your house on.

If you're wondering whether you can host your website on your own, using your home PC.. well you could, but it's not advisable. First of all, most of the ISP (the company that lets you to online) won't allow you to do so. Secondly, you have to keep your PC on and running 24 hours, and deal with all the technical difficulties in setting up your PC to host websites. Trust me it is not that simple.

After you built your website, you can then store it on the web host, setup www.YourName.com to point at it and voila! You're now officially the owner of a .com website =)

End Note:

It costs around $9-$12 USD to register a domain name for one year. You'll have to renew the contract annually if you wish to keep the domain name. You'll normally get a free domain name when you sign up for a web host. However, if you plan to register additional domains, do not go through your web host as they normally charge a higher fee, refer to this article The Simplest Way To Register A Domain Name instead.

Web Hosting Service costs around $3-$7 USD per month. If you don't have a web hosting company in mind, I recommend the web host which I'm using right now. Check out my post on The Simplest Web Hosting Company for more information.