Planning to have a website? You will need three things: web hosting, domain name, and a well-designed website. Are they all same thing? Most beginners have such doubts, whereas some don’t even know that they all are separate things.
It is because web hosting and domain name are needed together to build a website. But, they are not one thing. Here we will explain what web hosting and domain are, types of web hosting and how are they related to each other. Without wasting any time, let us start with the definition first:
What’s Web Hosting?
In a simple term, web hosting is a place or computer where people can store their websites. Just like your home where you store your things; instead of storing furniture and clothes, you are storing your computer files, documents, audios, and videos in the web host.
“Web hosting provider” is a term that refers to a company that rent out their servers or computer to store your files and website and give you Internet connectivity for your users to access those files on your site.
Websites can either be hosted or stored, over special computers known as servers. When any visitors want to check your website online, they just have to type your web address or website domain in their browser. Then they will be automatically connected to your web server and your website will be visible to them over the browser.
Types of Web Hosting
With the advancement in technology, different kinds of web hosting are introduced that will meet different needs of the websites and customers. Some of them are mentioned below:
1. Shared Web Hosting:
This is one cost-effective web hosting solution for low-traffic websites. It is the right choice for start-ups, bloggers, and business owners who are starting new. In the shared hosting, all the websites have to use the same CPU and RAM, which means if all sites stay small, then there must not be any problem ever. Besides if anyone website in the shared hosting server gets higher visits or crashes the server, then all the websites will be affected too.
2. Dedicated Hosting:
Though an expensive type especially for big websites where you want to be in total control. Dedicated hosting is an advanced service that offers its users complete access to their server with Linux administration permissions. Besides dedicated hosting is generally self-managed, so you need the proper knowledge to manage and administer the server and hosting environment.
3. VPS Hosting:
It is the best option for web pages that have outgrown shared hosting. Still, VPS hosts several websites—less than the shared hosts—but with their virtual machine. On the VPS network, your storage, files, and docs are agnostic to other websites on a server. Hence, this freedom between the resources offers your site higher security, power, and stability.
4. Cloud Hosting:
It is the best option for websites that are rapidly growing and want scalable resources. Cloud hosting is quite popular these days. The cloud concept is used in several technology areas and also in the hosting area. This type of hosting service offers a provider with the infrastructure services in the utility model for outsourcing computing & storage resources of a company. In Cloud, there’s no physical stuff to indicate or label as a cloud. Cloud hosting is highly applicable for large-scale websites, and many hosting companies now are moving to the cloud.
5. Reseller Web Hosting:
Reseller web hosting offers a plan that helps users to sell different shared plans. There’s the control panel over reseller plans, which helps users to have total control over their shared accounts for storage, billing, RAM, and more. It helps them to have complete control that can be offered to the client on various plans. Web designers mainly use a reseller web hosting for tracking their customers.
What’s A Domain?
The domain is your website address. Before setting up your website, it is important to book a domain. And to have your domain, first, you have to register the domain with a domain registrar.
The domain is a string of various characters that provide your website a proper identity (like a person or business). And one such example is Google.com.
All domains are unique and different. It means there is just one Google.com in the whole world and you can’t register a domain or name once it’s already registered by others.
Types of Domain
As mentioned, there’s a systematic order within a domain registry, which distinguishes one domain name from another.
- Top-Level Domain or TLD mainly refers to the last part/character or the suffix of the domain name.
There is a limited list of the predefined suffixes that includes:
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- Nonprofit organizations – .org
- Commercial business (common TLD) – .com
- Educational institutions -.edu
- Government agencies – .gov
- Military ¬.mil
- Network organizations -.net
- Generic TLD identifies the class of domain that it’s associated with (like .com, .edu, .org, etc).
- Country Code TLD is a 2 letter domain extension, like .uk and .fr, mainly assigned to a particular country, territory, or geographic location.
Web Hosting Vs. Domain Name
It is quite simple to understand the difference between a domain name and web hosting. Both the services are completely different but need to work together to make your website run properly.
Web hosting is a location where the website is located and domain name is an address of that particular location.
Basically, web hosting is a storage that has all the resources and files of your site, but, the domain name does not store anything. It will just help to point a browser to your web hosting server.
The basic point is web hosting is the storage for your website and domain name is an address of that storage. If hosting is a home that has all the files and resources of the website, then domain name is an address of the home.
How Are Web Hosting and Domain Names Related?
Web hosting and domain names both are different services. But, they need to work together and make your website possible. A domain system is just like a huge address book, which is updated constantly.
Behind every domain name, you will find an address of a web hosting service that stores the files. Without proper domain names, your users cannot find your website & without hosting you can’t build a website.
What’s a Website?
A website is a ‘site’ on a ‘web’ where a person can display information about their company or brand and online users can access this information by using the internet.
Technically, a website is a vast collection of interlinked web pages that are grouped together under one unique name or address. These pages have information and services by an organization or business. This information can be in various formats like images, text, audio, videos, and graphics and the services can be buying and selling products, etc.
Types of Website
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- Static: The static website includes flat files like images, CSS and HTML. It is the simplest form that a website will take.
- Dynamic: This type of website is made when the visitor enters a website. This type of website is mainly generated by web applications and code.
- Blog: Weblog or Blog is the most common term used for the Content Management System. WordPress is one popular blogging application.
- Ecommerce or Shopping: An eCommerce website is a site that sells products and services. This involves using the shopping cart application and custom code.
- Portfolio websites: This type of website helps creative professionals to display their best work. It is ideal for writers, artists, filmmakers, designers, and more.
- Affiliate: A website used for re-selling any service.
- Forum: This type of website is for discussing related topics. This is powered by the website application.
Final Words
To conclude, you can buy a hosting and domain from the same company or you can take it from multiple companies. But, when you buy the domain and web hosting plan from the same company, its setup becomes a little easier because you do not have to change its domain name settings. For this reason, many companies offer both services.
Falconost is one such company that provides both web hosting and domain services at a very reasonable cost. We have three different web hosting packages, Fly Low, Fly High, and Fly Top and all come with their own benefits. Users can try our shared & fully managed hosting plans and cancel them anytime they want.