Planning to get a website?

Websites are simple to access – just type in the web address and then the website pops up. But have you thought of what’s going on behind the scenes? What does it need to make a website work?

If you plan to get a website, chances are, you’re going to get yourself a web developer. Whether your website is for personal use or to have an online presence for your business, along the way, you’d probably need a professional help.

Now, your developers would then ask you, “Do you have a domain?“ or “where are you hosted?“. This is the point where questions like these confuse an average person. Suddenly, you get surprised as you wouldn’t have thought about all of this. As a non-tech person, all you want is to type in your web address and then your website pops up.

But, as an aspiring website owner, you need to know some parts that make up your website. These parts are like keys that you will hold as long as your website is up and running. So, what is a domain? What is a hosting? We’ll talk about this on why these things are important and how it’s related to getting a website.

Once you know these, you can now decide the best domain or hosting service would serve your website.

What is a browser?

When one wants to access a website, you need a web browser (or simply “browser”). Browsers help you present a website in a user-friendly manner. Without browsers, your web pages are just lines of codes that an average user can’t understand. Browsers are the ones who will translate these codes into a presentable format of information.

Probably, you’re reading this blog on a web browser. Browsers today are a must programs on most computers. The most popular web browsers are:

• Google Chrome
• Mozilla Firefox
• Microsoft’s Bing
• Safari

Most of these browsers are free to download or pre-installed when you purchase your computer or your smartphone.

What is a Domain?

One important piece of the puzzle that makes up a website is the “domain”. Domain is your unique identifier from the billions of webpages that’s on the internet. It’s your own address with in the internet real estate.

There are no two same domain names. To further help you understand, if you registered, say lilysbloom.com, there is no other person on the planet that can have that domain.

Domain, URL and the Web Address

Before we pressed on further, let me teach you some tech terms to help you understand what your web developer is saying. We need to uncover these terms because, as often as not, they are used interchangeably with each other (and yes, even developers do that).

Domain, in the strictest sense, is your website’s main identifier. Some famous domain examples are google.com, facebook.com, redcross.org and many more. Often, when people ask where they can visit your website, you usually answer the domain name. This usually leads to your home page, or other people call it the main page.

Universal Resource Locator, or commonly called the URL, is the exact webpage that you are trying to access. URL is composed of your domain name and then followed by a ‘/’ and then a string of text that identifies the exact webpage. For example, you have facebook.com as the domain name. But, when added a specific web page of facebook.com/tony.stark, this now becomes a URL. Like domains, there can be no same URLs within the World Wide Web. URLs also have different variations, but let’s just leave it like this for the sake of simplicity.

Web Address is another interchangeable term for the URL. However, non-tech person (or what I call non-nerds) sometimes interchange a domain with a web address. Although in the eyes of the nerds, they are not the same. However, general public interchanges them. When people ask you, “What’s your web address?“, they are asking for your domain. Others would ask you to share your website URL, where in fact, it’s just your domain that they are looking for.

TLD’s

A domain is a string of text that, when typed in the browser, will get you to the website that you want to access. To get into the website, make sure that you put in the right domain, it’s correctly spelled and then the TLD was right.

So, what’s a TLD?

Top-level domain, or the tech people would say TLDs, are the .com, .org, .gov, etc., part of the domain.

.com, the most popular TLD, means “commercial“, while .org means “organization”. .net is “network“ and .shop means online stores and e-commerce.

.pro is for professionals. This website of mine particularly uses this TLD.

There are also TLDs that uses country codes. For example, .ph means “Philippines“, .us is for “USA“, .ca is for Canada.

.tv is often misled to “television“, when in reality it’s a county code for “Tuvalu“ – in which Tuvalu is making a lot of money out of its assigned TLD.

In the early days of the internet, these domains means something. You cannot easily acquire these TLDs unless it’s appropriate for the purpose.

Today, common, supported TLDs can be acquired easily as long as it’s available. However, some TLDs undergo government permissions before you can use it. You cannot get these TLDs easily using common domain registrars (I will also explain what a domain registrars in a bit).

As an example, .edu means “education“ and it’s used by academic institutions. You can get it by channels specifically for institutions that are academic such as universities. For .gov, it stands for “government“. You cannot just register a .gov like a common TLDs. These kinds of TLDs need additional and important requirements before you can get them. Some countries make you easily get their country code TLDs, while some don’t. A little research will help you decide the best TLD for your business or personal use.

SLD and Sub domain

To move on from domains, you must know what a secondary-level domain and sub-domain are. In our previous example, lilysbloom.com, we can now determine that the TLD used was .com. Now the part “lilysbloom“, is what tech people will say secondary-level domain, or SLDs.

While sub-domains are the one that’s before your SLDs. Before, the most common sub-domain is the “www”. Many years ago, the browser can’t find the website you’re looking for when you don’t completely type in the sub-domain, the SLD, and the TLD altogether. But now, browsers are smart. Typing in the SLD and TLD is already sufficient. Like when you type “facebook.com“.

Some sub-domains that are commonly used are shop., blog., info., news., app., etc. Some website owners often use sub-domains to handle a different and large section of the main domain. For example, shop.lilysbloom.com comes from lilysbloom.com. The “shop.” could show that this website handles the shop section or the online store of lilysbloom.com.

The Golden Question: How Do I Get Domain?

To own a domain means to register that domain name. You can register it at a service called domain registrar.

Domain registrars are a repository of hundreds of millions of domain name in the world wide web. This is where you shop your domain names you wish to own. Registrars are powerful tools to know if a domain name is taken, available or up for sale.

Often, you come across a lot of suggestions on what domain name is best for you. People would say to craft a catchy name, others would suggest that you stick to what’s simple. But every name you make up comes with different challenges, and price.

For business owners who have an existing business name, it’s a simple decision. The only problem it carries is if that domain name is still available to own. For example, if you look up the domain name lilysbloom.com and found out that someone already owns it, you cannot have that domain name unless if you offer the existing owner a price to sell it to you. Sometimes, the price is heavy.

The usual course of action in this situation is to change TLDs. Note that lilysbloom.com and, say, lilysbloom.net is an entirely different domain, and might own by a completely different entity. So changing TLDs is a viable option.

For someone who’s starting from scratch, it’s best to brainstorm your domain name before diving in to the domain registrar. Think carefully about what’s the best domain and business name. It’s best to remember that, practically, you’re going to hold this name as long as your business is running.

There are a lot of domain registrars out there. I use namecheap and pork bun on my personal and business websites. You can start from there (although I’m not paid to promote them).

Remember that it’s wise to shop in your own domain. In this way, you have knowledge on what are the price points of the domain names are. Although you can entrust your developers in getting a domain name, you have to be aware of rip-offs who charge 10x than the normal price.

In purchasing a domain, you need to pay an upfront cost and then maintain its ownership by paying an annual fee. Upfront cost can go from $12 and as high as $9,000.

Domain names that are short with common words usually are expensive upfront than domain names that are uncommon.

Servers

Servers are where you store your website files. These files show up on a browser whenever it’s requested from a client.

These servers are physical computers located anywhere in the world. Without servers, clients cannot access your website even if your domain works.

Once you have your server and your developer deploy your website files in it, plus your domain is connected, then your website is live and running. Your website, as the tech people say it, is now in production.

To acquire a server means to rent one. You can rent a server with hosting companies.

Hosting offers different servers depending on the purpose and how big your website’s operation is. When you try to shop for a server space, you can see several benefits and features from different plans such as web space, number of allowable monthly visits, free email, free SSL, daily backups, etc.

To help you get started, whichever hosting company you choose, the basic and cheapest offer can suffice. Plans from different hosting companies have generally the same payment scheme. For example, the longer the duration you choose in renting a server, the lower the cost in terms of monthly payments.

In choosing a hosting service, don’t stress yourself too much and choose the ones that are cheap and have excellent customer service. By having a reachable customer service 24/7, you can ask for help when your site goes down or you need to migrate your website.

Conclusion

Domain and server are the essential building blocks on making your website live and open to the internet.

When you understand how domains and servers work and what is their role in having a website, you can make knowledgeable decisions and avoid costly mistakes in your journey towards having your first website. In this way, when you work with an agency or developer, you can communicate these things with knowledge and understanding.

Remember that it’s always a good idea, as a website owner, to handle these things to yourself. This will make you on top of your own domain and server. There are other business or website owners who let their agencies or developers to handle out everything, including domains and servers. Although it helps you take off your time from looking at these things, you might end up paying more than the usual market price.