Domain Name Registration
and Set up.

Domain Registration is the first step in joining the Internet community. Registering a Domain Name is very easy. There are hundreds of Domain Registration Sites where for less then $10.00 you can register a Domain Name. Here we will explain in very simple terms what you need to know about registering and pointing your Domain Name to your Server.

We'll start by explaining what a Domain Name is and what it does and what are Name Servers. Look at the diagram below.

Home

Domain Name
Registration
and
Settings

The same way every telephone has a unique number or should we say address, so does every Web Server on the Internet. These numeric addresses are called the IP address. An IP address looks like this with out the quoits "000.000.000.000" . They range from "000.000.000.000" to "255.255.255.255" .

Not all of these address are solely for the Internet, some are reserved for other things like LAN "Local Aria Networks" address and other addresses. An example is the IP address 127.0.0.1 . This is the address of your computer from your terminal. If you put a server program on your computer you would talk to it from your key board using this address.

If you had two computers sharing the same printer then the printer would know which computer was talking to it because one would have the address 127.0.0.1 and the other would have the address 127.0.0.2 . You could connect two computers together and start your own private Internet, they would be connected via a LAN program. Many companies do this, they use the reserved IP addresses for private LAN Networks. Again I'm being very general here if you want more in depth knowledge of LAN Networks the are hundreds of Internet Sites that go into great detail. The are very few sites that explain things in extremely simple details but for many this is where to start.

Now if your totally confused at this point then great, if not then great also but if you are it's better because you will totally understand what is so great about Domain Names. All these numbers make many people crazy. Homes.com is a lot easier to deal with then a bunch of numbers. It looks like someone is interested in looking for a site that deals with Homes. Easy!

But computers only deal with 1's and 0's . which are turned into other number systems that are easy for programmers to deal with, but what if you wanted to deal with a system that every one could understand, people that would have no training at all concerning computers or number systems.

Well that's what they did. The Domain Name system (I'm not sure if it's called a system.) . that's where you as a user of the Internet only need to know the Domain Name of a Web Site and it will get you there.

But if your going to run your own Web Site you'll need to know a bit more then that. You'll need to understand how the Domain Name system works.

First off every Domain Name is unique. There is only one "yourdomainname.com". But there are a number of TLD "Top Level Domain" extensions. To name a few, .com, .net, .org, .gov . Not all TLD extensions are open to the public to buy.

Another point is that you don't really own the Domain Name. You kind of lease the rights to it via a yearly renewal fee. If you don't pay the fee you lose the name.

But just having a Domain Name makes you a member of the Internet Community. Yes, you have an address, it's considered property. There are Domain Names worth Millions just like real property. Bank of America paid three million for loans.com .

I bought a Domain Name that gets what is called "natural traffic" ( people just typing in the name.) and I make about $500. a year off of advertising, with out doing anything. Buying expired Domain Names is a big business, many people make big bucks off the traffic of these expired names. Buying names that get natural traffic like home.com, or loans.com are just about all taken, so very little luck in finding these names free, but people for what ever reason let many good names expire and it's up to who ever finds them and buys them up to who will make the money off the traffic that these names produce.

But lets get back on track. Every server has one or more IP addresses. When you buy a Domain Name, the place you buy the Domain Name will have an option for you to point your Domain to a particular IP address. We'll call your Domain Name "ydn.com" . Say you have set up hosting with this hosting company and they tell you your IP address to the server is 127.0.0.1 (It won't be because this is to your own computer but we will use this as an example.). You will then need to go to your registering site and find the place to point your domain to this address. It will usually be in the DNS (Domain Name Servers) section of the site. You are setting up your Domain Name Server.

There are thousands of these Name Servers peppered all over the world. When some one types in your Domain Name their web browser sends this name to the nearest available Name Server where it looks up the IP address connected to this Domain Name. Your request to see the Web Page is then directed to the Web Server with that IP address.

This is why when you set up your DNS it may take up to 48 hours to propagate to all the Name Servers in the World. They all update their databases on a regular basis.

Now that you understand the basics of a Domain Name, this is what you need to know to buy and setup your Domain Name.

First you need to shop around for a good registrar to buy your name. check out as many sites as you can , the more sites you check the better your feel of what a comfortable site is for you. I have over a hundred Domain Names, I do changes to these Domain Names every day, I need to feel comfortable with this environment.

Second you will need to be able to change or modify you DNS setting on the fly. You never know when you may need to change Web Server.

Third make sure you can contact customer service in case there is a problem. Before you buy, ask their customer service these questions I've listed it will let you know how fast their customer service is and if they have what you need. Very important if there is a problem. Your site may be making big bucks per hour some day, you don't want to lose too many hours of big bucks.

Forth Domain Names as of this writing are going for less then ten dollars. Don't pay more.

Fifth if you are hosting with a company that is offering a free Domain Name, make sure the name is in your name not the hosting company's name. Domain Names can become very valuable, in the Millions, you don't want to find this out, and not have the Domain Name in your name.

Also it's very handy if your registrar offers forwarding and masking, this comes in handy once you become more familiar with the various aspects of web development. For example I get traffic from one Domain Name that I want to go to another Web Site of mine, so I forward this Domain Name to the other Site and I mask the Domain Name so it looks to the user that they are still at the first Domain's Site.

Most Domain Sites will allow you to check a name to see if it's been taken. There are still a lot of great names available, not like back ten years but still some great ones left.

If you want my opinion, I buy generic names for branding. Like my name 13sky.com. It's easy to remember and it can be anything. Where hosting-news.com limits me to something to do with hosting, and the dash "-" doesn't seem to be as excepted as well as names with out a dash, but there are a lot of great names if you include the dash and the dash may become more excepted in the future.

In any case give a great amount of thought to what ever name you choose, or do like me buy anything you can think of and see what happens with it. I own about a hundred names and I have my own server, so I sit all day long playing with these names and different sites to see what fly's and what falls.

Its a great hobby, and as you try to build your domain name up it's like trying to build a character up in a game program. But once you build your names traffic up it's big bucks even if it's just advertising.

So here's the three steps to Hosting your First Web Site.

1. Get your Domain Name. You can buy your Domain Name first and your registering Site will park it for you. A Domain Name needs to be addressed to a Web Server, when you buy your name, it will be given two server addresses where it will be pointed to, even though you don't have a site, it still has to be pointed to a server, this server is called a parking server until you get your own server for your site.

2. Design your site. This will be explained next.

3. Get hosting for your site.

Written by G. Parsons copyright © 2005 hosting-news.com