Websites? Domain names?

[wesleysgirl]

Can anyone tell me the difference between a website and a domain name, in very simple terms? Am I right in thinking that buying a domain name doesn't actually give you anywhere to PUT your website (of the same domain name?)

Comments

[sleepfighter.livejournal.com]

Website is the actual website, domain name is the adress. Or in other words, yes.

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

So you pay to have a domain name that no one else has (how do they keep track of that?) and then you also have to pay for web space. If you're paying for web space at, for example, xxxspace.com, what does your domain name have to do with your web space address?

[sleepfighter.livejournal.com]

You regisiter your domain naime with an acreditid registrar, much like a liscence plate, since all domains are unique. So if you pay for a web domain, it's like having a licence to own it and have things go on at it for an entire year.

The host you pay for owns the servers that you host your content on. You may use a subdomain of their site (ex: subdomain.xxxspace.com), a subdirectory (ex: xxxspace.com/subdirectory) orrrr you can tell DNS--domain name servers that parsce the URLs from IP adresses to put your URL/domain name in and where to go.

So in other words, they're more like an apartment complex or other location for your stuff, but that's about it.

[wolfling]

It gives you a hopefully easy to remember address for you and other people to be able to get to your site.

Using my site as an example, I've got the domain name fwolfling.com and if you type that in, it'll go to my website that's up at TCH. If I didn't have that name, my website would still be there but you'd have to type in a series of numbers (the ip address? I'm not sure if that's the right term for a website location...) that was what TCH gave me as the default when I signed up, and is essentially what the fwolfling.com points to.

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

So say I bought the domain name Snuffaluppagus.com, and the place where I'm renting web space from has it set up so that address goes to my space -- what's keeping anyone else from using that domain name? Aren't there lots of companies that sell domain names? *Is confused*

[sleepfighter.livejournal.com]

You own the license to that domain name for however long you purchaced it for. Legaly, they'd be stealing your property.

[gchick.livejournal.com]

As mentioned above, it's legally your property.

More practically, if you bought snuffaluppagus.com, and then I decided at some later point to try to register the same name, my registrar would look it up in a central database that's kept by the agency that regulates these things, and tell me that it isn't available (although they might still try to sell me on snuffalup.org, snuffalup.net, snuffalup.tv, and so on.)

[elfgirl.livejournal.com]

[Er, this may be too verbose and/or detailed. Sorry!]

Think of domain names as signposts and web space as a physical location.

All of the Internet is housed on millions of servers all over the world. Each of these servers has what are called IP ranges, which can be divided up into individual IP addresses, usually associated with individual sites. The IP address functions just like a physical address -- it tells all the other computers where that particular site is. When you buy webspace, you'll get assigned an IP address from your webhost. This will be the address for your website. You could actually surf the entire internet using only IP addresses, if you could remember them all.

With me so far? :)

Domain names came into existence because it was too hard to remember hundreds of IP addresses. In essence, it's a list. When you type in a URL in your browser, it sends the information to a server called a name server, and that URL gets checked against a list of domain names and IP addresses. When it finds the IP address that matches whatever domain name you typed in, it redirects you to the right IP address and, volia, the website comes up.

There are tons of companies that sell domain names, but there is one "master" list (called the DNS list). When you buy a domain name, an entry gets inserted into that list with your information. Once it's in the list, it's not possible to create another entry for the same domain name.

[gchick.livejournal.com]

That's exactly right -- buying a domain name essentially means that nobody else can use that name while you own it; you may or may not ever have an actual website of that name at all.

Buying web hosting means that you have a bunch of space on a server. Not much use if you don't have a name to point to it, obviously.

You can get either one separately, or register the name when you sign up for website hosting. If you do the latter, you still have the right to take your name and move it elsewhere.

[lockenessie.livejournal.com]

I have been looking into this and I believe the domain names are regulated by a centralized agency, though many companies sell them. Look at godaddy.com. The other thing you should know is that if you own the domain name, you can forward it to your webspace. So, you could move your website from one server to another but people would still type in snufflelupagus.com no matter where it was housed. That is called forwarding. The other issue is 'masking", where people can't see you actual address but only the domain name. Some companies include that in the fee for the domain name and some charge extra.

I hope I haven't confused you more.

Maybe I should mention that you CAN buy the name and the space from the same place if you want.

[ladycat777.livejournal.com]

I don't honestly know which was chicken and which was egg, but once you buy a domain name from an accredited source -- towcows, godaddy, etc -- that is yours. There's a server whose name I'm blanking on that sets up where your domain name 'looks' -- what isp/ip -- but the only way someone can use it is if they steal/hack it. Otherwise, it's yours till the money runs out ;)

[janedavitt.livejournal.com]

This is where I got my domain name

http://www.mydiscountdomains.com/

Play with it; try and buy janedavitt.com and it'll tell you that you can't :-)

But my webpage is hosted with TotalChoice.

[redwolfoz.livejournal.com]

I'll second TotalChoiceHosting.

With hosting, you need to figure out what you need and take it from there. I needed the ability to run MovableType, MySQL databases, cPanel, webmail access and unlimited subdomains. I also wanted a *nix host and not a Windows one.

If you need PHP, ASP, FrontPage, a Windows box, etc; keep this in mind when looking for a host.

Narrow it down to a selection and ask the people on your Flist what they recommend or not and why from your choices.

With some other domains, particularly some country domains or domains like .edu and .gov, there will be restrictions. For example; I own a .com.au domain, I am only permitted to own it because I have a registered business name. Even then, the domain name must be related to the business name. But, if you're after a .com domain, if it's available, it's yours.

Sorry for adding my 2 cents worth Jane.

[janedavitt.livejournal.com]

No need to apologise at all!