Once you have a website, you need to go and find somewhere for it to live and an address so that it can be found. This is the domain name and the website hosting and not every website designer/developer will include this in your website package.
This is the kind of technical stuff that most people wish they didn’t have to think about, so if you do need to get your head around it, we’ve summarised the gist of it below:
Companies that sell domain names and website hosting do things differently and getting to know how a company works and the terms they use to describe things can be a frustrating experience, especially if they don’t have good support. Therefore don’t just go for the cheapest deal, but look at what they offer and read around for reviews on their customer support.
HOSTING
A company with a server (powerful computer with lots of space and a network) where you ‘host’ your website.
One hosting company we recommend is Rochen, who we like so much we have partnered up with them.
Rochen use cpanel – a popular web hosting management software that enables you to easily manage your website and server.
Rochen work well with many popular content management systems such as wordpress, joomla and drupal, enabling you to create simple to complex database driven sites with easy application installers.
A content management system is made up of site files, uploaded through the cpanel ‘File Manager’ and a database – created through ‘MySQL Databases’ and managed through ‘phpMyAdmin’.
The quickest way to upload site files to your server is by FTP (File Transfer Protocol), using a third party programme such as Filezilla.
And should you come a cropper, they have excellent customer support.
Details To Keep safe
– Username and password of your hosting account
– Username and password of the hosting support account, if different
– ftp details
– Domain Name Nameservers (DNS) or IP Address (see Domain Names)
DOMAIN NAMES
Not all hosting companies sell domain names or offer domain name management. Obviously you need a great domain name to tell people about so that they can find your website. You can buy these from any number of cheap online companies, as all you need to do with your domain name is point it to the server where your website is hosted.
Some popular cheapies include:
How you point your domain name to your host will depend on your host, you’ll be able to find out from them what information you need to update in your domain name account. For example, if you host with Rochen you can point the domain name to your Rochen DNS nameserver that you receive in your welcome email, or you can point the DNS records to the IP Address (found in the cpanel stats).
Details To Keep Safe
– Domain name account login details
You may have found an all-inclusive package where you have your website designed, developed and hosted all by the same company, but if you are having to set up your hosting and domain name yourself we hope the above will help to clarify which are the really important details to keep hold of.
BEWARE
Before changing hosts or updating domain name details, check if you have set up an email account with your host, or have email forwarding set up with your domain name account as you do not want to lose any important emails.
