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They are literally around us constantly now. Everything we associate with has a Internet name or domain name. It is hard to believe that just a few years ago, they did not exist in the marketing scheme of a business or any other organization. So, what exactly is a domain name and how does it work?

Domain names are a logical name for a site on the Internet, the same as every person has a name rather than just a number. Can you imagine what it would be like if we all had to refer to each other as numbers rather than given names. The same goes for the Internet. The Internet runs on a name to number system which by now we all take for granted.

Internet Real Estate

Domain names can be considered real estate on the Internet. Everyone pays a fee to get a domain name either on a yearly or multi-year basis. The cost compared to just a decade ago has gone down tremendously. At the onset, domain names cost well over $35 US. Now, a name can be purchased for a low as $1.99.

Certain names have a ring and are worth a great deal of money. Therefore, the cost of obtaining those names range from hundreds to thousands of dollars. People have actually begun to buy and sell domain names like physical real estate holdings.

Getting the name is simple, if it is available. Anyone can go to a website such as GoDaddy.com or Register.com and research if their choice name is available. If it is, then it’s just a matter of making a credit card payment and the name is yours, just like buying a house or office building.

Name to Address Translation

Just as people have last names, we all don’t know where each of us resides. The Internet works on the same concept. Even though we may own the domain name, the Internet does not know where the site actually resides. This is the magic that happens behind the scenes of the Internet.

The way that domain names get related to corresponding servers is through a series of servers on the Internet that take the domain names and do lookup searches to the server or servers that are attached to the name. Each name gets translated to a numerical address, similar to street addresses, block numbers or zip codes. Now this is a very simple explanation, but it is the basis of how the Internet works.

The process

Now that the general name and translation concept has been explained, lets see how it works from point A to point B.

A user goes online and types in the address abcd.com into the web browser. The computer begins the lookup process by going to the name translation server and asking “Does anyone know what this site is?”. The name server will then begin a global lookup of that name and within milliseconds get back a reply of the physical address of the server and then route that request to that particular server.

If you’ve ever gotten one of those weird messages stating, “This address could not be resolved.”, you are actually getting message that the servers on the Internet could not locate a physical server for the address entered. At this point you either check your address or something happened to the site you are trying to reach.

I’ve been asked this question a few times already, so I thought it would be worthwhile discussing. When it comes to web hosting, there are two types , Linux and Windows.  Which one should be chosen?

Most sites will run on both systems as HTML files (the files which actually make up the page) will run on either one. Where the differences come in is in the extensions or extra language that is being coded into the site.

Generally, sites that are programed to be dynamic using Microsoft solutions such as ASP or .NET will require Windows based hosting as Windows hosting has the backend software installed in order to process commands written in those languages.

Sites written in PHP, are best suited for Linux hosting, although most Windows hosting will also have the PHP processing software installed.  But, for the most part, PHP was originally for the Linux hosted web sites.

The last major difference has to do with cost. Windows hosting sometimes can cost more per month than Linux based hosting. It could be compared to the stability and reliability of Mac versus PC. This is generally due to the increased costs of maintaining a Windows based web server compared to a Linux based server.

So, which hosting solution should you choose? For the most part you can choose Linux as it is the most popular and will run basically any simple site simply because of the cost and the greater number of companies out there.

If there are any further questions, feel free to contact me and I will gladly answer your questions.

Many people who are not familiar with how a web site works will ask the question, “What is Web Hosting.” Web hosting is service by which a company rents disk space on a computer that is on the Internet to store the files of a web site. There is nothing really fancy about it. Just as one saves a file to their local computer, a web host provides space to save the files that make up a web site on a remote computer that is accessible by the whole world.

Web hosting services generally have three or four options available based on the amount of space one would need to store all the files necessary for a web site. Also included are email addresses which allow one to create a unique email address that has the same domain as their web site. For example, if you have the name “mysite.com”, your email address would be “myaddress@mysite.com”. The entry level options are usually sufficient for a small web site and have more than enough web addresses available for a small operation. The bigger packages are for sites that have lots and lots of pages. Each package has a different price. Hosting packages start at $1.95/month and go up from there depending on company and options offered. Some go as high as $299.99/month. It pays to go shopping for web hosting before committing.