A Simple Explination.
Are you the web savvy member of your household? Maybe you are the technical uncle who is only too proud to show off his expertise at Christmas gatherings, or the loud cool aunty, always wearing the fruit salad or animal print shirts, but secretly running the number one online wooden toy shop and grossing 100K a year on the side?
To those of you who are the technical genius of your peers I ask …….Have you ever tried to explain the mysteries of website domain names and hosting to someone who has no idea about the modern technical age?
Whether they own and run a business, wish to start a side project for extra income or simply want to share a passion with everyone else on the planet, they must have a grip of the basics to keep up. Don't let the industry geeks charging an arm and a leg for products and services fool them by using the tricks of fancy terms and longwinded explanations.
To those who aren't as web savvy as the young 15 year olds, who regularly test the latest technology, eager to record their experiences using the numerous web forums and personal blogs, I am here to explain to you in the most basic terms:
A. What domain names and web hosting are, and
B. Why you need both when owning a website or simply obtaining personalized email accounts.
A. A domain name is the address of your hosting account.
Your hosting account is where your files are kept.
The best way I have found to explain this is to associate it to real estate.
1. If you don’t have an address people won’t know how to find you.
2. If you don’t have an address you don’t have any land upon which to build a house.
Your domain name is like your postal address pointing to the location of your land, and as far as the Internet is concerned your website is your home, sitting on your land/hosting space.
So again.. The domain name is the address. Your block of land is the hosting space and the website files are the timber and nails used to build your house/home.
Finally, your web hosting/land sits on a web server much like your files sit on the hard-drive of your home computer.
B. The need to have both a domain name and a hosting space.
To re-confirm – Your hosting account is where the files sit and your domain name shows people where it is.
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Websites are basically constructed using many files and file types which are the floor, walls and roof of your home… as well as the windows letting you view your surrounding community and sometimes beyond! These files need somewhere to live that is accessible by the wider community (World Wide Web – aka. www). These web files sit on your block of land within the web community and your block of land is your hosting account.
Hosting accounts hold all your website files or for some people just an email hosting, attached to the domain name to enable getting personalized email like
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
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Hotmail or gmail accounts provided free by the big guys commonly show that you are not completely established in your trade, as they are accessible to anyone. Domain name registration and email hosting are a very cost effective way to look the goods and start trading and communicating immediately under your chosen business name.

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