There are two absolutely necessary things you need in order to start a website – a hosting provider and a domain name (or subdomain). Many hosts would provide you with a free subdomain like this: yourdomain.hostingcompanydomain.com, but as you can see this is actually having a directory on somebody else’s website and it’s simply a compromise. If you want to establish your own independent website you need a unique domain(like that: yourdomain.com) that clearly represents your company/brand and services.
What Is A Domain Name?
What is a domain name? It’s the human-readable representation of your website’s IP address that is managed by the Domain Name System (still, one domain name may have more than one IP address). Your personal computer, the server hosting your website or any other device connected to the Internet is assigned its own domain name. The domain also indicates who the owner of a website is. Once you’ve registered a domain name it cannot be used by anyone else and if you change the location of your website (move it to another server or host it with another company), which usually requires a change in the IP address, your domain stays the same.
Important Domain Services
When you register a domain name, you need to make sure that the registrar provides you with access to important settings for your domain name including management of DNS settings (containing A Records, CNAME Records, NS Records, MX Records, TXT Records) EPP Key (necessary for the transfer of a domain), Registrar-Lock and access to the public WHOIS database (that includes your contact information, domain registrar and registration date, etc). It is also important to know if the company offers additional services like Domain Privacy Protection, Domain Parking, URL Forwarding, Email Sending, and Forwarding, etc.