It's all in the name
A domain name hosting service, for most of us, is one of the most vital components of our website and its effectiveness. Truth is, without a domain name, people have no way of knowing how to get to your site in the first place. So, just what is a domain name? Well, it's basically just techie-speak for your own unique web address or URL. So, if you were a multi-millionaire willing to spread your expertise around to the rest of us, then the domain name of your company could be something like www.icanmakeyourichtoo.com!
Most website owners will try to buy a domain name that says something about their business or what their site does. That's all fairly easy to understand.
But, once you've built your website and secured a domain name, you need to bring the two together so that the general public can access your site. This is where domain name web hosting comes in.
You see, you can build a brilliant site and pick a name that says it all, but you still aren't really anywhere yet in internet terms. Your site isn't available, so nobody can see it and typing in your domain name won't get anybody anywhere either, because there's nothing there. To bring the two together you need a domain name hosting service that acts as a conduit between them. Larger companies may have the resources to do this in-house; however, most people will rely on a hosting company to do the job for them. To make it even easier, you can even choose a provider that will sell you a domain name.
Let's take a look at what you can expect from a domain name hosting service. It's all quite simple really. A hosting company takes your website and gives it a home on one of its dedicated web servers. These are high performance machines that are up and running all day and night, every day of the year. It puts your site on the internet. But how do people get to the site from here? You guessed it -- the domain name! Your hosting company will simultaneously make sure that your domain name points to your website on its server. It will give your site the right zip code, so that the web mailman can deliver your visitors to the right door! It does this by linking your domain name with its own Domain Name Server (DNS). The internet does the rest. It takes your domain name, looks behind it for the links that your domain name hosting provider set up, and then opens your site for your visitor.
So, once your site is hosted, it really has multiple addresses. There is the domain name you chose for it and then the domain name hosting company's server address where it actually lives. The first is really just a memory aid and it's the other one that does all the work! You see, the internet has a better memory than most of us, so it works with long strings of numbers rather than with words. We, on the other hand, find it easier to remember words. So, behind every www.icanmakeyourichtoo.com, you'll find a set of numbers. Still, only a math genius would rather remember something like 98.467.12.94 than a few memorable words and a ".com" so we should all be grateful that domain names were invented!
The beauty of domain names is that they are generally portable. You pay a registration fee and then own the name for a specified period of time. So, if you decide to try a new hosting provider you can arrange to have the name transferred with you wherever you go. It's worth remembering that this doesn't apply if you opt for the kind of domain name hosting service that gives you a name that you don't actually own as part of your package. Decide to leave here and you'll have to find a new name as well as a new hosting company to keep your site on the internet.
