What is Web Hosting and Domain?

If you want to develop your personal brand or maybe start a new business online, you will need a website. Today, websites are like a phone number everyone has one. There are many reasons to own a website, whatever those be, there are things like: What is Domain name, what is a subdomain, what is web hosting, what is DNS, cPanel, FTP; which are often heard but rarely understood. 

As a result, many become frustrated and stop the idea of owning a website. This article is to help you understand the initial things, in brief, like Domain, Subdomain, Web Hosting, which you should know before owning a website. 

Related article: What is SEO and how it works

What is a Domain Name? 

A domain name, well, is an address where the users access your site. Simply it is a name that you use for your online presence. A domain name helps to find and to identify your computer on the internet. When you make a search from your computer for a specific website your computer uses the IP address (a series of numbers) to identify and locate the other computer. You can also find the website using the IP address (for example Facebook is the domain name where 176.13. 69.63 is the IP address. Remembering such sequence becomes difficult, so instead, domain names were developed. 

A domain name can be any sequence of—letters, numbers, characters with an extension of .com, .net, .co, .org etc. However, to use the domain name—unique ID—on the internet you have to register it. This ensures that no two sites have the same domain name. Means, if a user searches for www.yourdomain.com they will reach your website. 

(Image Credit: SlideShare)

The typical registration charges start from (US)$ 1.99 to (US)$ 35.00 which you have to pay annually. It is the first requirement when it comes to having a website. And, to launch the website on the Internet you will need a Hosting Provider who stores your information for users to access it 24/7. 

What is Web Hosting?

Web Hosting Services allows you to publish your website on the Internet. When you have created a website and choose a hosting service to host the site, it grants you space on a physical server which allows you to store the files and data needed for your website to function suitably. In return, you pay a periodic rent. 

A physical server is nothing but a computer (with hard drive space, a Central Processing Unit, RAM, and an operating system) that operates 24/7 without interruption. The physical server, unlike your computer, is way powerful and allows countless viewers to view the site at the same time. 

It is because of web hosting; your website is up and running all the time and is available to anyone who wants to access it. Besides allocating space, the hosting provider maintains an environment that keeps the server running and protects against malicious attacks. The Hosting services are also accountable for conveying the website content like images, videos, texts, and files from the physical server to the person visiting your website. 

Hosting Service stores all the information that you feed your website, and transfers the content from the server to your visitor’s browser upon request. 

The reason different web hosting options exist is that all servers are not the same; some hosting providers allow the server to just one website, whereas some might host thousands of them. 

They are further differentiated based on the technology used, the involvement in management, the resources and services offered.  

Why Do I Need Website Hosting?

Every website on the Internet is hosted. It’s not a question of if you need it, it’s more a case of which type of hosting to choose. 

The dominant Types of Web Hosting Services are:

1. Shared Hosting
2. VPS Hosting
3. Dedicated Hosting
4. Cloud Hosting
5. WordPress Hosting

What is DNS? 

The Domain Name System, otherwise known as DNS, is a hierarchical system used to search a particular IP address in the network of millions. Put simply, DNS is the phonebook of the Internet. We use Domain names, as mentioned earlier, for our convenience. The communication of computers, however, happens with the unique IP address allocated to them. 

What DNS does is, it translates the domain names to IP address and locates the IP of that domain, landing you to that particular website. 

How DNS works?

When you want to access a site using URL, the computer looks if the domain name is present in the local memory. If it does not find the domain in local cached memory, it expands the search. It queries the DNS if that particular address is available in the database. 

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There are multiple servers which are interconnected. Meaning, if it could not find the request on one server it requests the other servers until that particular address is found. For example, if you search for www.google.com  you will be on Google’s server. And, once the DNS server finds the requested it redirects the IP address and the domain name to your computer. Your computer then finds the domain using the IP address provided by the DNS. 

DNS Setup

You probably know that the internet is the interconnection of networks. DNS is inter-linked servers, which when requested to look up from server to server to find a particular nameserver. For example, when users want to visit your site using the domain name, the DNS determines which server it reaches. When you own a website your Web Hosting server is the server your visitors reach. Let’s say you change your hosting provider—what happens is—now your server is the new provider instead of the one you used before.

What is Subdomain? 

Domain names have three parts: Third-Level Domain, also known as, the Subdomains. The popular and common subdomain is www.; but they change and can be anything. For example, when you search for developers.google.com you are on a substitute page of the main website. 

(Image Credit: Love2dev)

The others are Second-Level Domain (SLD) which is anything after the subdomain, for example, “Google” in www.google.com; whereas, a Top-Level Domain often referred as TLD, which is the next to the second-level domain. The most famous TLD is .com, overseen and distributed by ICANN to various domain registrars on the market. 

Why Subdomain is used and why having a Subdomain is important?

A Website has different functions and it becomes difficult to keep everything in one place. Subdomain help by organizing them and also assists the visitors using those functions easily. To put in simple terms, you have a shop and you want people to know your address in the town. When you distribute your shop address it contains the city which is the TLD, it also contains street name and building number which is the SLD. Simple and Clear!

But what happens when your shop is in a Shopping Complex, giving building address your users will find it difficult to navigate you in the mall, whereas, giving the shop number and floor would make their job much easier. And, that’s why subdomains find a useful purpose. 

At times, Subdomain becomes a necessity, if not compulsory then voluntary, like if you want to add a store to your website you can use the subdomain. Having subdomain separates the main website from the eCommerce section. As many people like your website content, whereas, others may want to purchase something from you; this makes it easy to find and locate a particular section of your website. 

You can create a Subdomain from the cPanel. 

What is cPanel?

cPanel is a web hosting control panel which uses a Linux-based graphical interface, also known as GUI, simplifies the control and maintenance of a website. cPanel is the application where you can create email accounts, as earlier put—manage your domain, organize file, publish your site, and so on. There are two interfaces within the cPanel: the Web Host Manager which is the server management GUI and a cPanel which is the user interface. WHM provides an accessible way to host providers to manage the server, whereas the user interface facilitates the users to manage their websites. 

(Image Credit: InMotionHosting)

Many hosting providers include cPanel with their hosting plans, in general, it is a third-party application which comes at a price. Most hosters also offer cPanel for a period of one or two years and later you have to pay a small fee to access it. 

cPanel is a company like many but is a popular one, and there are companies with other websites control panels. 

What is a Fire Transfer Protocol (FTP)? 

File Transfer Protocol is one of the oldest methods of transferring data between computers. Anyone can utilize the FTP host/site if they have access to transfer and receive files but it is effective to web developers, hence mostly used by them than a general internet user. Web developers use FTP to make changes and modification like adding an image or changing the template to a website, given that it contains large amount of crucial data.  

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You can simply make an FTP connection using command prompt on Windows or Terminal on Linux or Mac. To make an FTP account access the FTP section on your GoDaddy or Hostinger account.