Reasonably Priced Hosting for Your Domains
There are two prerequisites to launching a website:
- A domain name
- A web hosting account
The domain name (e.g., thewholeinternet.net) represents your identity on the Web and is converted to a machine-readable ip address. Hosting is a service that makes websites accessible on the Internet by storing the files that comprise the website (HTML, CSS, images, videos, etc.) on a special always-on computer server. The server translates the incoming domain name to its ip address and then facilitates a 2-way connection between the server and the client accessing your site. The domain name and the web hosting account are two related, yet different services, and both are required to have an operational website.
What is a Domain Name?
A domain is the alpha-numeric name that represents the address for the website, my-domain.com for example. A domain can be up to 64 characters long and contains two parts — a top-level domain name (TLD) and a second-level domain (SLD). In the above example, my-domain is the second-level domain name, and .com is the TLD. While you can select the Second-level domain name to be anything that is available for registration, there are a finite number of top-level domains to select from. The top-level domains can be generic (gTLDs) or country-code (ccTLDs), and can be registered for a span of time between 1 and 10 yrs. They may be additional requirements depending upon the particular TLD. For example, anyone desiring a .pro TLD (sometimes referred to as a domain “extension”) must provide evidence that they are a licensed professional in their field.
Further information regarding domains and TLDs is available from the Understanding Domains primer.
Domain Hosting Solutions
As the domain name is just a name and nothing more, a website hosting account is required. You can register with one firm and receive hosting service from another, although most hosting providers offer both solutions. If the price and service offerings match your requirements, it is convenient to administer everything from one place with one control panel. Either way, because the domain registration and the website hosting account are separate services, you have to point the domain to the hosting server where it will be added as hosted. To perform that, you need to change a specific setting, or record, for the domain name… the so-called name server records. Each web host has at least two name servers, ns1.thewholeinternet.net and ns2.thewholeinternet.net for example. The hosting control panel that you utilize for your domain name offers you the possibility to change the name server records and point the domain name to one hosting supplier or another.
The Demand for Stable Website Hosting Services
As soon as the domain name is pointed to a hosting service provider and is added to their servers, your site will be reachable on the public Internet At this point, you are free to create email accounts using your domain name, such as name@my-domain.com and use webmail or an email client to administer them. Whether you host a personal or a business website, being online and enabled to fully administer and customize your site are the two most critical features that you get with a website hosting account. In the case of a business site, it identifies your business before your website visitors, and reinforces your brand name recognition. For that reason you need a reliable hosting vendor with a proven track record of performance.
Reasonably Priced Hosting from The Whole Internet
Additional online services that you receive by hosting a domain name with us are: 99.9% uptime guarantee, FTP access to upload and download files easily, domain forwarding, email auto-responders and mailing lists, and the possibility to create and configure domain records from your Hepsia hosting Control Panel.