How to Register a Domain Name and Get Hosting
February 20, 2010 by admin
Filed under Featured, Tips and Information
This article gives step by step instructions on the basics of registering your own domain name, getting web hosting space and uploading your new web site.
Hosting
For your website to be viewed by anyone browsing the internet, your site files need to be stored on a server accessible to the internet. Documents, images, photos, etc. Pricing for hosting can vary from $3.95 up to $15 or more per month, depending on things such as number of visitors, large files hosted, images, how much traffic, etc.
What is Bandwidth?
Each hosting plan you look at has a bandwidth limit, this is normally a per month limit, if you look at bandwidth like a bunch of cars on a highway it tells you how many cars are allow to go on a highway before you need to add another lane, it also means that only a certain amount of cars can go via that highway per month. If you have big video file (a large truck) it takes up more bandwidth. Smaller files, especially images, mean smaller cars, meaning more traffic can go through. Thus, try to make files small if possible.
What is the Difference Between Windows and Linux Hosting?
When you see on a hosting website, “Windows server” or “Linux server” then its giving you the option on what programming language your website is written in. Talk to your webmaster about this. PHP programming language runs on Linux systems and ASP programming language runs on Windows systems. Personally, I am a Linux fan.
About Domain Names
A domain name is like an address for people to find your website. A domain name is looks like: “yourname.com” or “mywebsite.org” To look professional and have an easy to remember domain, pick one that works for you and try to register it. So many domain names are taken that you will likely have to try multiple times. Domain names come in many extensions, the most common being .COM. Domain names are extremely cheap now days and what I recommend. But sometimes, if the name you want is available in a less common extension, such as .info, you might consider it.
Choosing Hosting and Domain Registration Companies
There are hundreds and hundreds of hosting website and domain name registration companies. Consider a basic, inexpensive plan to start. Free hosting often places ads on your site. Look also at for an easy to use control panel, such as cPanel or support for Microsoft FrontPage. Check the reputation of any company you are considering by doing a web search. Be sure to pick a company that is reputable and appears to be stable and one that will be in business for awhile.
How to Upload a Website:
Uploading your website means copying all your site’s files to the computer that is accessible to others broswing the internet. You can can use Microsoft FrontPage product, or, more commonly, an FTP program to upload your website. (Search the internet for “free FTP software.”) There are many free FTP clients such as a program called “smart ftp”. Your web hosting company likely has more detailed information on how to upload files in a way that works for your particular hosting account.
Hope this helps. Look around this site for more information about this topic.
