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Does a website come with a domain name? If not, what comes with a website and how do i get a domain name?
New website owners often seem confused about how and when domain names come into play. The questions usually boil down to: "Does a website come with a domain name?" and "If not, how do I get a domain name?"
Web hosting and domain name registration are usually separate services. Although your hosting company may give or sell you a domain name with your website, most hosting companies are not domain registrars, and chances are they're procuring it from a third party. (Domain registrars often give you a website, but they're usually not "full featured" websites, and another issue.)
What's more, despite the fact that hosting companies will generally take care of your initial domain name registration, becoming familiar with the basics of domain name management can save you anywhere from a few bucks to a little bundle. (For the definition of "bundle," forget Webster'
s Dictionary. Look at your monthly statement from your hosting company; if it gives you that sinking feeling, that's a bundle.)
Registrars like directnic.com and enom.com, for example, charge $15 and $30, respectively, per year, per domain name. In bulk, you can get names at enom.com for as low as $9. And with a little shopping around, you can do even better than this.
Managing your own domain names will usually have its biggest payoff if you should decide to get more than one domain name, a common practice that can sometimes enhance your web presence. How? Let's say, your business name is "Grumpy's Hardware and Paint." Some people know you as Grumpy's Hardware, some as Grumpy's Paint, and some as just plain Grumpy. You might want to get three domain names -- grumpyshardware.com, grumpyspaint.com, and grumpy.com -- so your site can be reached no matter what a surfer enters in his browser.
The way this would work is, you'd open your hosting account using, let's say, grumpy.com. Then you'd add on, what's called, "parked" or "mirror" domain names, grumpyshardware.com and grumpyspaint.com. Parked or mirror domains are not separate websites; they simply point to an existing website, grumpy.com, in this case.
The problem is that some hosting companies will charge you setup and/or monthly fees for parked domains. These fees are above and beyond the yearly fees you already pay for registering domain names. And these fees can add up.
By managing domain names yourself, however, you can avoid all "parking" fees, not to mention shop around for a better deal on the names themselves.
The fundamentals of domain management begin with two basic methods of directing domain names to your website. That is, the process that gets a surfer from the browser to your website involves a mechanism that takes the surfer (unbeknownst to him) to your domain name registrar and then to your website. The journey from your registrar to your website can be accomplished by one of two methods -- "pointing" or "forwarding." It's your choice as to which method to use.
What's the difference? There's a huge difference.
Although the menus for setting up these features vary from registrar to registrar, the concepts are the same. "Pointing" involves assigning a DNS (Domain Name Server) address, obtained from your hosting company, to your domain name grumpy.com. This is done at your registrar account.
Then, you must inform your hosting company to "set up" grumpy.com on their end, if they have not yet done so. And this is where domain name setup and monthly fees at your hosting company come in.
"Forwarding" (also referred to as "redirecting"), on the other hand, works a little differently. Let's say you wanted to set up grumpyspaint.com for your website. Instead of using the DNS method described above, you would simply "forward" it to grumpy.com, which would already be pointing to your website. In addition to being a little simpler, it's likely you've just saved yourself some money.
How?
When a surfer enters grumpyspaint.com, t
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3.22 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."
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