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Domain Names and Hosting
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Domain Names and Web Hosting
It is now time to choose your domain name and a hosting service to publish your web pages.
There are two things you need to maintain during the life of your website:
- Domain Name
- Hosting Service
These two things can be independent of one another and are usually billed separately. But there are many services that do both.
When you register a domain name, you are paying for that name (ie. www.yourdomain.com ) to be registered in one central database for a period
of time, usually one to five years. When it is about to expire, you will usually be sent an email reminding you to renew it.
Or, what is easier, is to have it auto-renew on your credit card so it never expires. If it does ever expire, you run the risk of someone else purchasing it.
If this happens, you are out of luck and would have to get a different domain name. Don't ever let your domain name expire.
This central database was created by the U.S. Department of Commerce and is named: InterNIC. (other countries maintain their own system.)
InterNIC maintains this database and ensures there is never a duplicate domain name and stores these domain names along with a unique IP
(Internet Protocol) address that points to the hosting service you selected to host your website.
So all websites have a unique name and a unique IP address that point to a single web server connected to the Internet.
If you have access to the Internet, you are getting that access from your ISP (Internet Service Provider).
When a new website is created, you will not be able to find that website on the Internet until your ISP updates their domain name database.
Once they do, you will be able to visit that new website.
Every ISP in the world download this database frequently, usually every one to five days and install it on their network.
Once you have established your website online, it may take you several days before you are able to visit it. This is normal.
Domain Registration Cost:
At the time of this writing, depending on which registrar you go through, the cost to register a domain name is around $15 to $30 per year.
These registrations all end up at the same place (InterNIC), but some registrars charge more than others, so shop around.
About Domain Names:
There are three major domain types:
- .COM
- .NET
- .ORG
.COM Is used for companies conducting commerce in some fashion. On-line shopping (E-Commerce),
company advertising, small businesses and any commercial enterprise.
.NET Is used for companies and subsidiaries networking their business together across the country and the world.
.ORG Is used for organizations. typically "Non-Profit" clubs, political parties and any group or individual wishing to express their message.
These descriptions are only guidelines. They are not laws. You may choose any of the three for your
website regardless of your function. In fact, some companies and organizations register their domain
name under all three (.COM, .NET & .ORG) to prevent other entities from taking their name and confusing
their customers. If they are a company, they will simply set-up the .ORG and the .NET to automatically forward any visitors to their .COM website.
For instance: If IBM only registered IBM.COM, anyone could register IBM.NET and set up a website.
Visitors trying to get to IBM may accidentally type in IBM.NET and get the wrong website. This type of thing has happened,
(of course it did not happen to IBM - this is only an example).
These definitions are loosely based and are not enforced or adhered to. You can choose any domain name that is available.
However, if you can get the dot com version, that is best as most people remember the domain name and assume it is a .com and not .net or .org
The dot coms filled up fast and if the domain name you want is a common sounding name, most likely it is already taken.
Since the dot com names filled up so fast, they opened up several new options:
.biz .info .us .tv
But as soon as they did, the larger companies purchased their domain under these as well.
You can choose any one of these extensions: .com .tv etc. It doesn't matter which you choose, they will all work.
Choosing a Domain Name:
Put a lot of thought into your domain name. It should be as short as possible and it should be memorable. And if possible, it should be catchy.
Domain Name Rules:
Only alpha, numeric and the - dash characters are allowed. Spaces are not allowed in a domain name.
Name Considerations:
- Try your company name first
- Try adding your state's name in front of your company name
- Try adding your city name
- Try a significant geographical name - lakes, rivers, etc.
- Keep your name as short as possible
- Make it as easy to remember as possible
- Avoid words that could easily be misspelled
- Avoid words that can be spelled several ways
Examples:
Let's say your business name is Bank King
Bank ends in the letter K and King begins with K. This will cause confusion for people if you choose:
bankking.com
When people verbally tell others to go to bankking.com they most likely will forget the second K and simply type: banking.com and they won't find your site.
Using a dash is okay: bank-king.com
But the downside is that people, when telling others about your site, will have to say: "Go to Bank Dash King.com"
and they most likely will forget to say the "dash" and will just say: "Go to Bank King.com", but the person will hear: banking.com
Avoid domain names like this if you can.
Also try to avoid hard to spell words if you can, such as: quantumspectroscopy.com unless that is your company name.
Getting your Domain Name
Once you have decided what you want your website name to be, you need to see if it's available. Chances are, someone already has it.
To find out if it's available, go to any domain registrar website and use their search feature.
But do not purchase the domain name yet. You may wish to register your domain name with the
hosting service you choose as it will be easier and sometimes you can get your domain name free for a year if you host through a specific hosting service.
Website Hosting Cost:
At the time of this writing, website hosting fees are anywhere from free to $100 per month depending on what services you require.
About Free Hosting
There are a lot of free web hosting services available. However, most of them give you free web space,
but also put advertising on your web site that you have no control over. This can be okay, but it usually makes your website look cluttered.
Or you can get a free hosting service for a short period of time, but then they start charging you.
The best free hosting service you can find is where they will host your website for free, with no advertising, forever.
These opportunities are rare, but they do exist. They make their money when you discover that you need to grow your website to the next level.
Example: You start with the free hosting service but as time goes by you discover that your website is limited.
You would like to have more than the 5 email addresses they gave you for free.
Or you discover you need more disk space for your website, or more monthly bandwidth.
At this time, you can choose to upgrade your website service to the next level and pay a monthly fee.
But starting with a free service will help you begin experimenting with your website.
Choosing a Hosting Plan:
There are many hosting plans offered. Free sites tend to not offer much. If your website is small and you don't expect a lot of traffic, then a free service will do just fine.
If you know in advance that you wish to have e-commerce on your site, have page counters, track where people come from to get to your site and have lots of disk space and bandwidth usage, then you may wish to start immediately with a more sophisticated plan.
Web Host Suggestions
Because this book is printed, we will not recommend any hosting service here. Instead, we will list them on our website in the registered user section.
If we recommend a hosting service that changes their policies, or no longer exists, we can remove them from our website and find a different recommendation for you.
The website is easily changed, where printed material is not.
Visit our website and review Lesson 30: Domains and Hosting.
There you will find our current recommendations and instructions for getting your domain name registered and your website hosted.
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