In the present digital world, every other business is shifting its operations online. And observing this trend, you now decide to build your own business website and host it online. But, now you are facing difficulties on how will take your website online. Don’t worry we’ve got you back!
In this article, we will be discussing what is the difference between web hosting and domain. This will give you a brief idea of what is web hosting and domain and how it helps in making your business presence online. So let’s get started!
Web hosting and domain are two terms that can be confusing for people who aren’t technically sound. But one must know it’s working to build a successful website.
Before we discuss the difference between web hosting and domain, let’s get a quick overview of web hosting and domain.
What is Hosting Server?
A hosting server is a type of virtual space that stores HTML code, CSS, multimedia content, CSS files, and scripts of the website. A hosting server can be free or subscription-based. The pricing mainly depends on the server configurations and access level. Let’s understand this with an example.
If you opt for a free hosting server, the hosting provider may offer you limited resources and minimal support. In the worst case, they may even publish ads on your site in exchange for using their service. Displaying ads on your business website will shoo off your visitors and negatively impact your business.
Whereas premium hosting services offer better availability and control of your server. You can easily choose one of the plans that suit your business needs. The best part of any premium hosting provider is that they offer 24/7 support.
How to Choose a Web Hosting that Fits your Needs?
Before you pick an ideal web hosting, you must thoroughly assess the configurations offered by hosting providers with your website requirements. Once you analyze the requirements, you can easily choose a web hosting provider that can fulfill the needs of your business website.
Below we have provided a few factors to consider while picking up your ideal web host:
The first factor is to analyze how much space you will need to host your website. In the initial stages of online presence, your website will be lightweight with few content and media files. We suggest that you should choose a scalable hosting provider that offers resources according to the growth of your website. So, even in cases where there is a sudden traffic surge, your website will stay up and running.
Next, the web hosting provider you choose should offer a control panel with its plans. Having a control panel allows you to modify permissions within the server, create new accounts, and install new applications.
Lastly, go for a web host that offers a 99% SLA uptime guarantee. SLA is the amount of time a service is operational and available.
Having said that, let’s see what a web domain is.
What is a Web Domain?
A web domain functions as an internet address of a website. It converts the IP address of the server into a human recognizable name thereby eliminating the need for remembering long IP addresses.
Some common types of domains are:
- .com : for commercial websites
- .gov : for government instituional websites
- .org : non-governmental orgazations
A full website address structure will be in the form of https://www.name-of- site.com/ where HTTP helps the browser to define the communication protocol. The www in the URL means that the page is available on the World Wide Web directory. Lastly, the .com represents the domain (here the domain is commercial).
Meanwhile, there is no need to add www before the website, it will still redirect to the same page.
How to Choose a Domain?
The process of choosing a domain is simpler than picking up a web host.
Firstly, check for domain availability with any domain name search tool.
Once you check the availability of the domain, you need to fill the form and make a payment for registering the domain. After the registration process is complete, configure the DNS values to be able to work on the site. Through DNS you could convert your domain name to the IP address of your hosting server where your website is primarily stored. Lastly, the web hosting provider will make the DNS values available to you.
Usually, the domain registration you do for the website lasts for a year. But, some hosting providers allow registering a domain name for more than a year. In case a person fails to renew the domain, it goes to a redemption period of 30 days. During that period, the domain can be recovered at renewal cost. However, once the domain gets expired, the domain isn’t recoverable and can be registered by any other person.
Importance of Domain and Web Hosting for a Online Website
Web hosting server and domain registration are important for a website’s operation without them there is no possible way to build and publish a page. So if the hosting server is home then the domain would be its address thereby making it visible on the internet.
The authenticity of your site will be maintained by well-defining the services used to register a domain. Furthermore, the domain should be easy to remember so that people could always return to your site.
I hope that by reading our article you got to know the difference between Web hosting and domain. Additionally, you can check out our Best Linux hosting UK plans that offer the finest quality, uptime, and performance.