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How to setup domain and web
hosting account. This article shows how to setup
your domain and your web hosting account. It also explains DNS,
Nameservers, IP Address, Forwarding, domain registration and trouble
shooting.
Introduction and scope
Almost Everyone who knows about the internet knows what a
domain name is. It is what identifies a unique website or email server.
When you send an email to someone@domain.com, the domain.com forms the
domain name. When you type in http://domain.com in the address bar of
your browser, the domain.com is the domain name of the website you are
going to see.
But how does the computer know
which page to show when there are almost infinite number of domain names
possible ? How does it know where to fetch the webpage from ? This
article answers these question and explains what you need to do to
register and setup your domain and tell all the computers in the world
that yourdomain.com should show your web page.
How to choose a domain
name ?
There are many top level domains (TLDs) the most popular are the .com,
.net and .org – Countries have their own like .us, .in, .ca, .au etc and
then there is the new breed of domains like .tv, .info, .ws and so oÂn
but the most powerful king of all is the .com Why ? Because it came
first ? In the domain market, single word domains sell for thousands of
dollars and .com costs around 10 times more than the others and is as
difficult to get a new name. There is a myth that domains with hypnens
(dashes) are better for search engine rankings, I think there may be
some truth in that myth, but domains without dashes always seem to cost
more than the ones with dashes. The best way to register a domain is to
determine the keywords you are going to target by using the free trial
of keyword popularity and competition analysis from
www.wordtracker.com and get a
domain with those keywords in it. Another school of thought abandons
this approach and advocates brand name domains like yahoo.com instead of
everything-portal.com google.com instead of the-only-search-engine.com
and ebay.com instead of online-junk-acutions.com - you get the picture.
Name Servers Explained
Every computer connected to the internet has an ip address that
looks like 123.234.123.234 An ip address consists of 4 numbers separated
by dots, each number ranging from 1 to 255. What this numbers mean is
not important for us, all we need to understand is that each computer on
the internet has a unique ip address and if the GoldenRobot wants to
talk to R2D2 on the internet, it has to know the IP address of R2D2
(name borrowed from the movie Star Wars). But Wait a minute, does that
mean that there are oÂnly 256*256*256*256 number of computers that can
connect to the internet, technically yes. But that number is large
enough for now until they start connecting ever microwave and freezer to
the internet (imagine your freezer automatically placing an order for 2
liters of milk to the grocery store when it detects that your milk stock
is diminishing!)
OK, now you must be thinking all
the ip address stuff is fine, but how does it relate to domain names ?
Remember that I said "if the GoldenRobot wants to talk to R2D2, it has
to know the IP address of R2D2 " - but all you give to your computer is
the Domain Name of the website you want to visit, so how can it get the
ip address ? Enter the NameServer.
The job of a nameserver is to
resolve a domain name to an ip address. Simple.
A nameserver is similar to a
telephone directory except that instead of mapping person names to phone
numbers, it maps domain names to ip addresses.
One misconception that I would
like to clarify, some people think that each domain name maps to a
unique ip address, not true. Just as many people in a house can share a
single telephone number, many domain names can share a single ip
address. The NameServer will return the same ip address for all of these
domains and when the browser connects to that ip address, it says I am
trying to reach suchandsuch.com domain, the webserver then returns the
correct page for the domain requested. Obtaining a unique ip address
(known as dedicated ip) for your website is usually more expensive than
sharing the ip address.
How to setup your domain
name
From the discussion we just had, you would be able to
appreciate that in order for you to get your domain to point to your
webpage, you need to do the following in theory
1> Obtain the ip address for the
web host where your WebPages reside - this is the webserver ip 2> Make
an entry (Called as DNS Entry) in a Nameserver to resolve your domain
name to this ip address. 3> Configure your domain to use this nameserver
Most of the time, step 2 will be
transparent to you as most webservers provide nameservers in which they
make the DNS entry for you when you purchase webspace from them. Also,
many good domain registrars provide their own nameservers that you can
use.
While registering a domain or
after registering a domain, you will need to set it up to use two or
more nameservers. It is common to use multiple nameservers so that if
one of them is down the others may be used.
You have three options to set the
nameservers
- 1> nameserver provided by
your web host Your webhost will usually have their own nameservers.
In their documentation they may say you need to use something like
ns1.yourwebhost.com and ns2.yourwebhost.com - If you use these, you
need not bother about the webserver ip address or any other
settings, just configure your domain to use these and you are all
set.
- 2> nameserver provided by
the registrar that you register your domain with If you use this
option, you will need to know the ip address of your webserver
(provided by your webhost). As you will be using the nameserver
provided by your registrar, you will need to set it up to point to
the correct ip address for your website by creating a DNS entry. The
ip address for your webserver is called as the A record and the ip
address for your mail server is called as the MX record, CNAME
records are used if oÂne domain needs to be similar to another
domain, but you do not need to understand these options for a basic
setup. Many top notch domain registrars in the industry provide
advanced DNS management like forwarding your domain to another site,
subdomains, email id management, wildcard dns etc
- 3> third party nameservers
This is an option that very advanced domain managers prefer when
they wish to have more features and greater control over their DNS
records which may not be provided by the registrar or the webhost.
Now a days, the line between the
web hosts and the domain registrars is fading as most domain registrars
are providing web hosting and most web hosts are providing domain
registration. If you purchase your domain registration and web hosting
from the same company, chances are that you may never need to do any
setup at all.
What to look for in a
registrar
It is always a good idea to register your domain with a domain
registration site rather than with your webhost so you can be able to
shift your webhost in case you need to without loosing your domain. A
good domain registrar should provide you the following features
- No Cost Domain Forwarding -
To Point your domain to anywhere you choose, you can even use a long
free web host url and forward your domain to it.
- No Cost for Change of
Registrant - Makes sure you can change registrars (transfer out to
another registrar) for your domain without paying a heavy fee.
- No Cost Domain Parking - You
get oÂne page saying your site is under construction or something
like that.
- Domain Name Locking - makes
sure that no oÂne can initiate a transfer request until you unlock
your domain
- DNS Server Changes - You
should be able to login to your own control panel and make any
changes yourself
I use www.planetdomain.com for
all my domain needs, they provide 1 year registration for $10.75 and
$9.75 for a domain transfer including one year extension.
Trouble Shooting Domain
Name Problems
What can you do if you have trouble setting up your domain? First of
all, remember that it may take up to 48 hours for your domain changes to
propagate across the internet. If you wish to verify the settings oÂn
any domain, you can use our recommended
whois tool
The whois report on any domain
will tell you about the current nameservers attached to that domain in
addition to the contact addresses, the registration date, expiry date
and the date when the last modifications were made to that domain
record. If the nameservers are not correct then you know you have to
change them by logging into your domain name control panel or by
contacting your registrar support.
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