If you are looking to have a website built you have probably heard the term Website Hosting and Domain Name Registration and wondered what it means, and if you need it. Well basically, yes you do need it. You can’t have a website on the internet without it.
Lets keep it simple, website hosting is your little piece of the internet, it is where your website lives, so in that regard, it’s kind of like property. So you rent your little 1 bedroom studio hosting space, and your website lives there. That’s basically it.
But what is it really? Well, website hosting servers can be very complex, and they vary greatly from one to another. When choosing a web host you want to make sure that it is physically located in the country that you are wanting to market to. This is important for search engines to know where your site lives and to target your results to people in those countries.
Some simple questions to as ask:
1. Where is the server located?
If it is located in the U.S. and you want to market to Australia, you need to ask if it’s possible to host on an Australian based server. If not, find one that does.
2. What capacities do I get on my account?
Like broadband internet, there are many plans and options you can choose. Basic plans for Australian servers are around 1 gigabyte of bandwidth and 1 gigabyte of disc space with unlimited email accounts and shouldn’t cost you more than $400 per year for a basic plan.
3. Are there excess charges?
When you go over your limits are there charges on your account? If so you may want to weigh up your options.
Something important to remember, is that some custom websites that are developed need to work on a specific type of server, for example, if your website is build in ASP.NET (a Microsoft scripting language) you will need to host on a Windows server, where as, if your website is built in Perl (a Linux scripting language) you will need to host your website on a Linux server, although you run Perl on Windows, it is not common practice for Windows servers to support it. This is not always the case, and there are many variables, again it is best to ask your web developer what server requirements you need for your website to work.
So website hosting is important, it is the location on the internet where your website lives and can be served out to your viewers. But what is a domain name?
Well, you probably already know that a domain name is your www.com address, so a domain name is your web address (another property reference). How it works is it translates your name into the location of your hosting server. For example if your hosting server is at location 74.125.45.100 (Click that, it’s Google’s home page) the domain name is a mask for that address. This is a convenience as you do not have to remember that whole number, and you can just remember a simple name. From there your hosting server translates your domain name and serves your website files.
If you are ever unsure about what your host tells you, simply ask, web people are more than happy to explain how things work.
