So many times I am asked: "Why Do I Need Hosting when I have a Domain Name?"
I figured it would be best to explain domain names and hosting ... even though they are common terminology and most people have an idea about them, they are not understood by all. So the best way to understand domain names and hosting is trying to explain an analogy between them.
STREET ADDRESS, LAND and a HOUSE
Try to think about your domain names as the street address, a house as your website and the land the house sits on as your hosting. A domain name such as "www.yourwebsite.com" is merely an address just like a street address is (like "55 Main Street"). The street address tells people where your house is located. It is the same for a domain name: the domain name tells people where your website is located on the world wide web (www).
You can equate your website to a house .... a house contains all your belongings and details of your living space --- a website contains content, tools/applications which are all details of that website if its a company website or personal website. I can even go one step further and equating each room of a house as a page link on a website and each of those rooms (pages) have different elements to it which makes up that room (page). So you can see how a house can be represented as a website in this scenario.
Thinking of your website as a house, a house cannot exist by itself - it needs to be placed on a plot of land. Just as a house is placed on the plot of land, your website is placed on a hosting server. The hosting server stores the files for the website. Sometimes host servers restrict space allotted for websites, which can be equated to the size of a plot of land (ie. 1/2 acre). Regardless, the hosting server allows the website to exist just as a house exists on a plot of land. And just as we pay taxes for that plot of land where our house sits on, payment is also required for the allotment of space on the hosting server for where our website sits.
Now going back to a domain name being represented by a street address ... the street address is associated to where that plot of land (hosting) sits and thus where that house (website) is. The domain name is set up to "POINT" to the ADDRESS of the hosting server on where the website resides on... thus once the website is set up on the hosting server, when the domain name is executed, it goes to the location on the host and displays the website.
I can go into more detail about mail and email accounts, ssl and home security and others and relate it, however I'll save that for another time. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to post below or contact me.
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- FREE Domain Name (first year only)
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- 10 Email Addresses
- Analytics/Tracking
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