WEB HOSTING EXPLAINED
Many people have no idea how web hosting works. Its just a mysterious Black art that they leave to the techies to sort out.
We have recently had to explain it to several of our customers so I thought we could do a simple post on how Web Hosting works.
REGISTERING YOUR DOMAIN NAME
You go to a Web Registry web site ..type in Register Domain Name in Google ...there are 100s of Web Registry sites and can do a search to see if your required domain name is available.
e.g You type in mydomainname.com.au and click the search button to see if it is available. If the domain name you want is available, you complete the form and payment details and submit the online application to register your domain name. It should not cost more than $30-$99 for 2 years registration (we have heard of people paying $200 plus for domain registration). If you have domains, they have to be active with a registry or they won't get any traffic.
Once registered the domain name sits with the domain registry. Anytime anyone looks for that name on the internet via a search …e.g. using Google ...…the domain registry tells the search engine where to find the site using the DNS …Domain Name Server… DNS is like the suburb for the website and emails… and each one has its own unique address e.g. in Telaustralia's case its ns1.hosting-australia.com.au. So any websites or emails ending in telaustralia.com.au get directed to that server.
This directs the internet traffic to the web server the website is hosted on.
WE THEN MOVE TO WEB HOSTING
Web site hosting is where the actual information for the web site sits. When a search is directed to the particular web server by the DNS the server sends the traffic to the required web site…. like a street address within the suburb.Emails work along the same line …..but with a with a slight difference being directed to the mail server rather than a web server ...
Web hosting must sits on a web server … or again the web site information can't be displayed …and is anywhere from $10 a month to $150+ a month. Typical Web Hosting with a Content Management System (to allow you to manage your own site) and e Commerce (to allow you to do sales etc over the Internet) is typically $30-$50 a month for most Small to Medium business's.
EMAIL HOSTING
Web hosting also typically includes the email hosting but this can be split between different vendors. Eg you may elect to host email at a locally based mail server within your office but have your web site hosted by your Web Design company. If you ant to set up an arrangement like this you have to change the MX record (Mail Exchange) with your domain registry.
While by no means simple its definitely not rocket science.
