There are two features you demand in order to have a website. The first one is a domains that will display your web page when you write it in a browser, and the second one is a web site hosting account, which is essentially the storage space on a web server where the site files will be located, plus a few more features that it is offering. The domain name and the website hosting account are 2 connected, yet separate solutions, and you demand both of them to have a functioning web page.
A domain is the alpha-numeric combination that you will choose to be the web address for the online portal: my-best-domain.com, for instance. A domain can be up to 64 symbols long and it comprises 2 components – a top-level domain name (TLD) and a Second-Level Domain (SLD). In the abovementioned instance, my-best-domain is the second-level domain name, and .com is the TLD. While you can select the Second-Level Domain of the domain to be anything that is open for registration, there is a fixed number of TLDs to pick from. The top-level domain names can be generic (gTLDs) or country-code (ccTLDs), and can be registered for a fixed period of time between one and ten yrs. They may impose more preconditions concerning the registrant.
As the domain name is just a name and nothing more than that, you demand a web site hosting plan where you have to include it. In this way, when you write it in a web browser, it will exhibit the web page files that you have in the account, i.e. it will display your site. You can have a domain name registered with one registrar and obtain the hosting services from another, even though a lot of hosting suppliers offer both services and it is more time-saving to handle everything from one single web site hosting CP interface. Either way, since the domain registration and the web space hosting package are separate services, you have to point the domain to the server where it will be added as hosted. To accomplish that, you have to modify a certain setting, or record, of the domain - the so-called NS records. Each web hosting vendor has at least 2 nameservers - ns1.webhostingfirm.net and ns2. webhostingfirm.net, for example. The web space hosting Control Panel that you use for your domain offers you the chance to modify the name servers and point the domain to one web hosting corporation or another.
Once the domain name is pointed to a given domain hosting vendor and is added to their hosting servers, you will receive several services. The most vital one is that the website files that you host on the server will now be displayed when you write your domain in a browser. You will also be able to establish email address accounts like name@my-best-domain.com and utilize webmail or a mail client to administer them. Whether you manage a personal or a business web site, being online and being enabled to set up e-mail box accounts with your domain are the two most pivotal things that come with a web space hosting package. In case you host a corporate web site – it will identify your business before your web page visitors or clients. That’s why you need a dependable web hosting provider that will deliver a dependable and steady site hosting service.
Additional web services that you obtain by hosting a domain are: FTP access to upload and download files effortlessly, domain forwarding, email auto-responders and mailing lists, and the ability to create and modify certain domain name records from your web space hosting CP. The presence of these features may differ depending on the company, but reliable web hosting suppliers such as 'NTC Hosting', for example, supply all of the abovementioned services with their website hosting plans, outshining their rivals.