Understanding Domain and Hosting

Posted by http://retwt.me/ce6p Friday, October 9, 2009 0 comments



In the world of website or blog, certainly you often hear the term of domain or hosting. Domain and hosting are the essential things for a website or blog. Therefore, let’s know and understand what domain and hosting are. For those of you who are not familiar yet with domain and hosting, below is the discussion that Kang Rohman can deliver to you.
  • Domain

In creating a website or blog, you are obligated to have the domain. What is domain?
Maybe you have ever heard about this term in other fields such as math or others. If we observe the general definition, domain means a place or the territory. It will be the same as in the internet; you need to have a place for your website or blog.

To differ from one domain with another domain, the domain should be given a name, or we call it the domain name, e.g. http://kangrohman.com, http://berandaku.com, http://blogspottutorial.com, etc. In the popular term, the domain name refers to Domain.

The Domain name is various according to the goal of a website created. The types of domain are specified with the words after it such as:

  • com ( read: dot com ) : for commercial website
  • org : for organization website
  • info : for website contains information
  • biz : for business website
  • gov: for government’s website
  • etc

There are also domains tend to territory:

  • us : for website in the United States (US)
  • co.id ( read : dot co dot id ) : for website in Indonesia
  • cn : for website in China
  • co.il : for website in Israel
  • my : for website in Malaysia
  • etc

However, in the practical, the domain names are no longer for the specified identities, for instance, the domain name ends with .org, used for personal website not for an organization, domain name ends with .info, used for commercial, and so on.
To purchase the domain, you can buy it at the websites that sell domain. This purchase is not permanent, but for a period in years (usually, the price will be for one year). Or precisely, we hire the domain, not buy. But it is more popular to buy a domain not hire a domain.
In the domain, there’s something called Sub Domain (part of domain). The Sub-domain is created of the main domain. The Sub domain can be identified from a separate written by dot (point). For instance, the main domain is kangrohman.com, we can create the sub-domain as blog.kangrohman.com, tool.kangrohman.com, nangkring.kangrohman.com. Or the real example for you is like kolom-tutorial.blogspot.com. Main domain is blogspot.com and the sub domain is kolom-tutorial.

  • Hosting

If you have bough a domain and you access the domain, it will be a blank page. In order to fill out the domain, we will need a hosting to store the database, web machine, etc.
An easy illustration, domain is like a computer and hosting is like the electricity. Both are to support each other. Or another example, the laptop with its battery. So, a website should have the domain name and hosting so it can be accessed by public.
To create a webhosting, you will need the very expensive tools, therefore, a webhosting company are present to give the space or bandwidth. You can find many webhosting companies on the internet.
Hiring a webhosting is usually fixed to 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, etc. One webhosting is certainly different from another one.
That’s all today’s post. Next posts, I’ll try to discuss about how to buy a domain, select domain name, select the right hosting, etc.


If there’s a mistake in writing and explaining about domain and hosting, please correct.



A few days ago, in this blog, I wrote an entry: Ten Things Every Blogger Needs to Start a Blog. If you were a new Blogger, I strongly recommend you to read it and if you have already read the entry, then you must have noticed that one of the most important things that you have to decide is whether you want to buy a domain or blog in a sub domain of popular blogging websites like Blogger/Blogspot or WordPress. In this entry, I would like to discuss this simple question from different point of views.

Why your own Domain

Your own domain means something like this: blogging37.com. You are the owner of this name and it exclusively belongs to you. There are naturally some advantages about something that you own. First of all, you have total control on it and you do not need to worry about the ownership of another person. Some people feel that independent domains do better in search engine rankings, compared to sub domains or Blogspot or WordPress. It is perhaps a very difficult to prove but I have the same opinion and I have noticed that especially when it comes to other search engines except Google like Bing and Yahoo, Blogspot blogs don’t do well compared to independent domains. And last but not least, your own domain gives you an opportunity to establish a brand- like my brand is called Blogging37 or Sports37 etc. By the way, buying a blog is very easy and very inexpensive- $8-$10 per year.


Why Blogspot/Blogger

You may wonder now that after all the benefits of a domain, why should anyone be interested to go for a sub domain in Blogspot? Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is that maintaining a blog in Blogspot is very easy and it doesn’t need any effort at all. You do not need to have any kind of technical skill. This facility surely encourages a lot of people and that is why you can find perhaps more than 8 million blogs in Blogspot. The second benefit you get is that you’ll also get free hosting and you also have the opportunity to earn money with Google Adsense and other advertising programs. So, with Blogspot blogs, you can earn money without investing anything.

Why not Wordpress.com Sub Domain?

I know that these days most bloggers are passionate fans of WordPress. I’m also a big fan of the technology but not of the free version WordPress.com where just like Blogspot.com, you can get a free sub-domain and free hosting. The thing that I do not like in WordPress.com it that he does not allow you to earn money by putting advertisements. There are some other limitations too. So, if you care about the earning any money then you should just simply forget it. Of course, if you’re a hobby Blogger then you have no problem.

Own Domain with Blogger Hosting

This is the thing that I like most these days. I have two blogs with my own domains but hosted on Blogger. I just needed to buy the domain for only $7.5 per year and then the hosting is free. It needs some technical know how but it is very easy as both Google and Godaddy have put up enough help materials.

Self Hosted WordPress Blogs

Among professional bloggers, it is very popular. For example this blog (Blogging37.com) is of this kind. I bought the domain and hosting from Godaddy and then installed WordPress at free of charge. It has many facilities and you have all the freedom in the world. However, just remember that you need to have some decent amount of technical knowledge and you have to give some time to look after the domain and the hosting and also you need some knowledge about maintaining a blog in WordPress.
I have talked about almost all the issues that a blogger may face about domain related matters. I hope that it has answered to most of your questions. Still, if you want to know anything more then leave a comment.

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