Every person or company that designs a website comes across the site’s two basic needs, i.e., hosting and Domain, which must be selected and purchased for the site. In other words, the first step in setting up a website is getting to know the Host and Domain.
Host and Domain are closely related. In this article, we explain everything about Host and Domain and their related concepts because you need to be familiar with the terms before preparing them.
What is Hosting?
In other words, a Host is a hosting environment considered on a server to set up a website or services such as email. The host is a specific virtual memory for the site, and the information is to be included in the site to exchange information.
This information can be designed for web pages, images, HTML files, etc. so that the Host can run your written programs and codes so that they can be seen on the Internet at any time of the day or night. In addition, several sites can be maintained on the Host, although the number of sites to be maintained depends on the following parameters:
- CPU power and bandwidth
- Power and amount of RAM
- The amount of space and server environment
- The volume of visits and use of websites
- Support for programming languages
If you don’t know what Host to get with what processor power and amount of bandwidth and memory, you should consider how many databases will be stored on this Host. How many email accounts do you have? The hosting company will offer you a better offer by presenting these things.
The maintenance of hosting services is done on individual servers, which are placed in two groups, Windows hosting service and Linux hosting service, according to the operating system used and the coding language of the sites. Windows and Linux are among the most important operating systems in the field of hosting services.
Types of hosts in terms of operating system
As we said earlier, different servers can use different operating systems, which we will explain further.
Linux Host
As the name suggests, this is the operating system; Linux, and its Web Server is Apache. This Host supports PHP code, PERL programs, and MySQL database.
Note: The Linux operating system is installed on the server, and it is not necessary that your personal computer’s operating system is Linux to use the Linux host.
Windows Host
This Host is with Windows operating system, and its web server is IIS. This service is for users who use ASP or NET codes. An MS-SQL database is recommended.
Classification of hosting types based on service type
Another type of division that can be considered to classify hosting services is the type of service they provide. These services include free, cloud, virtual hosts, etc., which we will examine in detail below.
Free hosting service
If you want to design a service or store site and have a good host, you have to pay every year or every month, and it is better not to go for free hosting. Some companies that want to attract customers offer a limited number of free hosting.
People who are new to site management and using servers and hosts or cannot afford to pay to use free hosting services. Of course, the possibilities for these hosts are limited, and, as we said, their use is not recommended.
Shared Hosting
A shared hosting service is a type of web hosting that stores many sites and information on one server, sometimes reaching hundreds of sites. Shared hosting will cost less and be more economical for users.
This Host has good security, but since the number of sites on one server is very high, using this Host is not recommended for very reliable sites.
Virtual Host
In virtual hosting, a unique server is divided into several virtual servers or VPS for users; compared to a shared hosting service, this hosting benefits from security and sometimes much faster speed despite the higher price. In other words, this server is a computer available to several users, but each has access to its section. These hosts are recommended for sites that are very reliable and have a lot of visits; on the other hand, security is important for them.
Dedicated hosting
In these types of hosting, your site is kept on a server that belongs to you completely; in other words, no other site is loaded on your server so that you can use all the resources of your hosting, i.e., processor, bandwidth, etc. for your site. Yes, the cost of this server is high, but it provides you with the most power and level of security.
In this case, some matters such as installing operating systems are the user’s responsibility, and there are no restrictions. Often important and famous websites have dedicated hosts.
Cloud hosting
Another hosting method is cloud hosting, which has become very popular and common today. In cloud hosting, there is not only one server supporting your site, and several servers are available to the site together. Each server manages and operates the site differently. Therefore, if one server faces a problem, the host management process will be done with the help of other servers, and this feature will make your site always available and have 100% uptime.
What is a Domain?
So far, you are familiar with the concepts related to hosting, but as we said at the beginning of the article, hosting is closely related to the Domain!
Introducing the most common domain extensions
The Domain is also effective in introducing your work scope; therefore, you should be very careful in choosing them. Domains consist of two parts: name and extension. The domain extension that comes after your business name is TLD. In the following, we will describe some of the most popular TLDs for you:
extension
.Com
This extension is recommended for business sites whose activity is global, which has become very popular today.
extension
.net
This suffix stands for Network and is used for news channels, online collections, and the like.
extension
.org
This extension is often used for organizations.
Site domain selection guide
Your site address or Domain is influential in the branding of your activity, and it should be in such a way that when the target community hears the name of your site, a relevant mentality is created for them. A good domain has these features:
- be short
- It should not be difficult to pronounce
- be recorded in the mind
- Have a keyword
- Do not contain dashes and numbers as much as possible
- It is not possible to type it in Latin in several ways, such as speed or saeid
- Do not copy or resemble the address of other domains
- be special
- Commercial extension com. This Domain has not been selected before
After choosing several titles for the Domain, ask your friends and acquaintances and test and evaluate to determine which name is registered in their minds.
To register a domain, you must act through the collections that provide domain registration services and do not forget that domains, like hosting, require annual renewal. If it is not renewed, your Domain will be free for other users to choose from, and in this way, it may be a fatal blow to Enter your activity and business.
The Difference between Host and Domain
In short, it can be said that hosting and Domain together complete the work of your site.
The Host is an environment provided by the hosting company on which website information is entered and provides facilities such as database access, email exchange, code execution, etc… Still, the Domain is the name of the website through which the website can be accessed.
What was mentioned in this article was the most common issues that novice users shared with us regarding setting up a site and the concepts of hosting and site domain. We hope this article was useful for you. If you have any other questions in this matter, ask us in the comments section so that we can answer you.