Ever wanted to own a site on your own and express yourself to the world. Here is the way to do it. Yeah.
Web hosting is a place where people store their websites. Think of it as a house where you store all your stuffs; but instead of storing your clothes and furnitures, you store computer files (HTML, documents, images, videos, etc) in a web host. More often than not, the term “web hosting” refers to the company that rent out their computer/servers to store your website (hence the word, host) and providing Internet connectivity so that other computers can access to the files on your website.
It is very common for newbies to get confused between a domain name with a web hosting.
However, it is important to be crystal clear on the differences between the two before you move on to your first website. To simplify: A domain name, is like the address of your home; web hosting on the other hand, is the space of your house where you place your furniture. Instead of street name and area code, set of words or/and numbers are used for the website’s naming’. The same goes with hosting, computer hard disk and computer memory are used instead of instead of wood and steel for storing and processing data files.
Let’s get back to our previous examples: Alexa.com, Linux.org, WebRevenue.co, eLearningEuropa.info, Yahoo.co.uk, all examples above end with a different ‘extension’ – .com, .org, .net, .biz… and so on. We call this “extension” as top level domain (shortform:TLD).
Every domain name has a publicly accessible record that includes the owner’s personal information such as owner name, contact number, mailing address, and domain registration as well as expiry date.
It’s called a WhoIs record and lists the registrant and contacts for the domain.
As required by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the domain owners must make these contact information available on WHOIS directories. These records are available anytime to anyone who does a simple WhoIs lookup. In other words, if someone wants to know who owns a website, all they to do is run a quick WHOIS search, type the domain name and voila, they have access to the website registration details.
Domain privacy replaces your WHOIS info with the info of a forwarding service done by a proxy server. In result, your personal info, such as physical address, emails, telephone number, etc is hide from the public. Domain privacy is important because your domain record (ie. the WhoIs data) may also be used in ways that aren’t legitimate or desirable. Since anyone can look up a WhoIs record, spammers, hackers, identity thieves and stalkers may access your personal information! Unethical companies check domain expiration dates then send official looking “renewal” notices in an attempt to get the domain owners to transfer domains to their company, or send invoices that are service solicitations for search engine submissions and other questionable services. Both email and snail mail spammers use the WhoIs databases to contact domain owners with solicitations as well.
Bandwidth is the measure of maximum data that can be transferred by your hosting account in a given time, usually measured in seconds.
The term “bandwidth” should not be mixed up with “data transfer” as they are two very different things. Data transfer refers to the consumption of bandwidth. In layman terms, the amount of data being transferred is ‘data transfer’; while the rate of data being transferred is ‘bandwidth’. Data transfer and bandwidth limit used to be a big thing when it comes to choosing a good web host in the past (I wrote a tutorial and a math formula on how to calculate site bandwidth here).
Not now anymore. As the average cost of data transfer go lower and lower, hosting companies nowadays are very generous in term of data transfer limit. So, unless you are running a large movie download sites, I wouldn’t stretch myself too thin on bandwidth and data transfer when selecting a web hosting service.
FTP is a standard network protocol used to transfer files from one computer to another over Internet.
Webmasters use FTP clients like FTP Pro and Cute FTP to upload and download files to/from their hosting server. Here is a list of popular FTP clients: Smart FTP, File Zilla, Cute FTP, and core FTP. The name is client but what it actually does is to connect to your server using FTP and allow you to easily browse and transfer files online.
Selecting a web host for your website is an important – and at times, daunting – undertaking. Beyond finding which web hosts are out there, it’s a matter of digging through different plans, comparing inclusions, and checking customer reviews. But beyond that, it’s important to look for what isn’t said.
This explains why ten of thousands of visitors come to our site for hosting guides and reviews.
There you go. Kickass tuts, all about hosting to the world. Even though I used Blogger to host this website you can cut off the .blogspot.com from your website.
Chapter #1: What is web hosting?
Web hosting is a place where people store their websites. Think of it as a house where you store all your stuffs; but instead of storing your clothes and furnitures, you store computer files (HTML, documents, images, videos, etc) in a web host. More often than not, the term “web hosting” refers to the company that rent out their computer/servers to store your website (hence the word, host) and providing Internet connectivity so that other computers can access to the files on your website.
Chapter #2: Types of Web HostingThe four different types of web hosting: Shared, Virtual Private Server (VPS), Dedicated, and Cloud Hosting.
Chapter #3: What is a domain name?A domain is the name of your website. Before you can run a website, you will need a domain.
Chapter #4: Web Hosting vs Domain
It is very common for newbies to get confused between a domain name with a web hosting.
However, it is important to be crystal clear on the differences between the two before you move on to your first website. To simplify: A domain name, is like the address of your home; web hosting on the other hand, is the space of your house where you place your furniture. Instead of street name and area code, set of words or/and numbers are used for the website’s naming’. The same goes with hosting, computer hard disk and computer memory are used instead of instead of wood and steel for storing and processing data files.
Chapter #6: TLD, TLDcc, gTLD, and Sub Domains
What is Top Level Domains (TLD)?
Let’s get back to our previous examples: Alexa.com, Linux.org, WebRevenue.co, eLearningEuropa.info, Yahoo.co.uk, all examples above end with a different ‘extension’ – .com, .org, .net, .biz… and so on. We call this “extension” as top level domain (shortform:TLD).
Chapter #7: Other terms you need to know
What is WhoIs data?
Every domain name has a publicly accessible record that includes the owner’s personal information such as owner name, contact number, mailing address, and domain registration as well as expiry date.
It’s called a WhoIs record and lists the registrant and contacts for the domain.
As required by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the domain owners must make these contact information available on WHOIS directories. These records are available anytime to anyone who does a simple WhoIs lookup. In other words, if someone wants to know who owns a website, all they to do is run a quick WHOIS search, type the domain name and voila, they have access to the website registration details.
What is domain privacy?
Domain privacy replaces your WHOIS info with the info of a forwarding service done by a proxy server. In result, your personal info, such as physical address, emails, telephone number, etc is hide from the public. Domain privacy is important because your domain record (ie. the WhoIs data) may also be used in ways that aren’t legitimate or desirable. Since anyone can look up a WhoIs record, spammers, hackers, identity thieves and stalkers may access your personal information! Unethical companies check domain expiration dates then send official looking “renewal” notices in an attempt to get the domain owners to transfer domains to their company, or send invoices that are service solicitations for search engine submissions and other questionable services. Both email and snail mail spammers use the WhoIs databases to contact domain owners with solicitations as well.
What is hosting bandwidth?
Bandwidth is the measure of maximum data that can be transferred by your hosting account in a given time, usually measured in seconds.
The term “bandwidth” should not be mixed up with “data transfer” as they are two very different things. Data transfer refers to the consumption of bandwidth. In layman terms, the amount of data being transferred is ‘data transfer’; while the rate of data being transferred is ‘bandwidth’. Data transfer and bandwidth limit used to be a big thing when it comes to choosing a good web host in the past (I wrote a tutorial and a math formula on how to calculate site bandwidth here).
Not now anymore. As the average cost of data transfer go lower and lower, hosting companies nowadays are very generous in term of data transfer limit. So, unless you are running a large movie download sites, I wouldn’t stretch myself too thin on bandwidth and data transfer when selecting a web hosting service.
What is File Transfer Protocol (FTP)?
FTP is a standard network protocol used to transfer files from one computer to another over Internet.
Webmasters use FTP clients like FTP Pro and Cute FTP to upload and download files to/from their hosting server. Here is a list of popular FTP clients: Smart FTP, File Zilla, Cute FTP, and core FTP. The name is client but what it actually does is to connect to your server using FTP and allow you to easily browse and transfer files online.
Chapter #8: How to Choose the Right Hosting
Selecting a web host for your website is an important – and at times, daunting – undertaking. Beyond finding which web hosts are out there, it’s a matter of digging through different plans, comparing inclusions, and checking customer reviews. But beyond that, it’s important to look for what isn’t said.
This explains why ten of thousands of visitors come to our site for hosting guides and reviews.
There you go. Kickass tuts, all about hosting to the world. Even though I used Blogger to host this website you can cut off the .blogspot.com from your website.