The 3 Step Guide to Web Hosting
24/7 Sales & Support.  Call 1300 863 436 Click to Call
The sexy world of
hosting & domains

The 3 Step Guide to Web Hosting

12/04/2017

There are a number of factors that make up the ways in which your website is hosted. Web hosting, as a whole, is the place where your website is stored. This includes all files, content, pictures, videos, music allowing for a safe place for your sites to rest. To put it simply, web hosting is run by a company, who will store your information from your website in computers and servers that they have, and ensure that your website is functioning correctly and is easily reached by potential visitors.

Many people when starting out with their webpages look to get it from one vendor, who can provide all of this. But we are going to look at these pieces individually, and show how they all intertwine.

Start with Domain Names

The very first thing someone should think about when making a website is the name. The name that people will search, the same one in the URL of your site. This will need to be registered and purchased for your use. A domain name, in the simplest terms, is a part of your main online address, and the identifier to which people will find you. It is, and should be, unique to your business. Registering it means that you ‘own’ that domain name, but if you do not continue to renew it that could change.

Everything that you look at on the internet works through an exclusive address, identified by a name or number. In order to find you the right page, your computer or mobile would look through unique numbers (IP Address) that are associated to those names (Domain Names). These are identified through nameservers, or DNS and are the easy way of locating the correct pages over the expanse of the internet.

Set Up Nameservers, or DNS

The next step to finalising your new website is setting up your nameserver, or Domain Name System/ Servers (DNS). DNS looks hard at the face of it, but actually can be quite simple to understand. It works hand in hand with domain names, and is simply the brain that remembers the numbers that your domain name can be identified by.

So, the DNS keeps track of the of your domain name and its associated numbers, or IP address. If you have gone through a company to organise your new website, they should have specialised DNS workers who organise of all of this information. Using in house computers that are specific to DNS tracking, they will be able to ensure that the link between the Domain Name and IP Address is functional, with the correct link between the two. Basically, it is the service that ensures that visitors are routed to the correct website.

Hosting the right way

If you have made it this far, it means that you should have your domain name sorted and the server intact to ensure that people can find your site! Now we need to look at the host of all of this process, who will ensure that the previous two sections are operating correctly.

In its most basic form, web pages are just a bunch of files strung together into a cohesive page about our services and products. These range from images and videos, music to HTML files, content and CSS Files. All of these files need to be stored in a place that your website is fed from in order for people to access this information. In other words, it needs to be attached to a server which feeds the information to people as they click onto your site, and the specific pages amongst it.

If you choose to do this through a company, using their servers to host your information, you are buying a web hosting service. They ensure that all the information is travelling from your given website, to their server, and out to visitors.

There are many different types of website hosting, from smaller scale hosting services to large hosting servers. If you would like to learn more about the different types of website hosting, or get the process started to getting your domain name, DNS server and hosting service set up, contact us today. We hope that this brief overview answered some of the questions that you had regarding web hosting, and aids with the process of achieving the best results for your webpage set up.

Recommended for you

$534m stolen from Japanese exchange in world's biggest cryptocurrency theft

Tokyo-based cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck, Inc. is under government scrutiny after it was subject to a…

Read more

This Is Not A Drill: Facebook Has Invented a New Unit of Time

Facebook has taken an enormous step in its pursuit of world domination. It was announced…

Read more

4 Reasons Why You Should Be Using a VPN

If you're like most people, you've probably already used a VPN to see if the…

Read more

testimonial-alex-quote