Basic web concepts

An introduction to domain names, web servers, and website hosting

I assume that you know nothing about the inner workings of the Internet; maybe you're not even sure how people actually get to web sites, where the web sites are actually sitting, what the web is in the first place....

In this article I am going to give you the minimum you need to get your 'feet wet' so that we can quickly get into building web sites. I won't go into painful micro-details that would put all but true nerds to sleep, again there is just enough so that you have a basic understanding of what's going on.

Getting your web site 'live' on the Web

With the nerd background details under our belts, we can now learn about the two steps to going live on the Web:

1. Register your domain.
2. Rent some server space.

1. Registering your domain

There are many companies out there that allow you to register the domain name for your web site. Prices vary, as does the quality of service, but at the end of the day, they all handle the details of getting your domain name listed in the giant address book I spoke about earlier.

These days, you will find that many of the names you may be interested in registering are already taken. As I mentioned above, domain names have to be unique and many have been slurped up.

A cheaper option

Some people may not want to buy a domain or pay for hosting because they only have a personal web site for fun or practice. You can still get your website live on the web by using a free hosting service that allows you to create what is called a 'sub-domain'. A sub-domain is just a domain that is part of another domain. So if mysite.com offered sub-domain hosting you could have an address like:

www.mysite.com/yourWebsite/

Or it could be like:

http://yourWebsite.mysite.com

Whichever way the free hosting service decides to do it. The point is that your web site domain is really a part of the parent domain, in this case mysite.com. Doing it this way, you don't need to buy a domain name, and you don't need to pay for hosting.

From How To Build Websites