Understanding Domain Name, Web Hosting and Websites

1K Blog Marathon: Day 19

You know, the website industry is not rocket science. You just have to understand the basic concept of a house. Yes, you heard it right! A house, home sweet home.

Let’s begin.

1. Domain Name – Your Home Address

This is the address or the URL that the users are typing on the browser’s search bar. And just like a real-world home address, a misspelled Domain Name can make the user “lost their way”.

Domain Name Anatomy

1. Transfer Protocol – this is the way that the website is transferred to your browser. It can be secured (https) or unsecured (http). To make it secured, you need to register it with SSL (Secure Socket Layer). This way, you can be sure that the data transfer is safe especially if there are sensitive data like passwords.
2. Domain – this is the actual domain name of your page. It comes in two parts: the name and the extension. Famous extensions are .com, .org, .edu, .blog.
3. Directory – self-explanatory, this means the folder in which your website files are stored.
4. Specific File / Post – this is the actual website file. It could be HTML, PHP, JavaScript, CSS, Image, XML and the likes.

2. Web Hosting – The Real Estate

Now that you have an address let’s go to the House and Lot. Web hosting is the physical space in the internet where your website will reside. Like a house and lot, this is where you contain all the furniture (files) of your website. But you can’t just get a lot, built a house and put your things inside it. You have to buy (or rent) the house and lot from a broke or agent – that is the Web Hosting Companies. Web Hosting companies have their own “physical computer” where you will be renting and putting your website files. They will do the dirty jobs for you to have a server – or a house and lot!

3. Website Files

This is your actual file. It is the furniture, the Television Set, the kitchen wares you store in your house. If you’re a web developer, this is the files that you are working on every day. These includes HTML files, PHP, CSS, JS, Images, Videos, Sounds, Robots.txt – in short, anything in your website!

That’s it! Now you know the difference between the three! I hope you learn something new about websites. Come back again tomorrow for new blog!

“And that’s one blog, stay hungry!”

Domain names and websites are Internet real estate.     

Marc Ostrofsky