There are 2 entities you demand so as to run an online portal. The first one is a domain name that will open your web site when you write it in a browser, and the other one is a web hosting package, which is fundamentally the hard disk space on a web hosting server where the web page files will be placed, plus a few more features that come with it. The domain name and the web hosting account are two associated, yet different solutions, and you demand them both so as to have a running website.
A domain name is the alpha-numeric combination that you will choose to be the address for the online portal: my-best-domain.com, for instance. A domain name can be up to sixty four symbols long and it consists of 2 parts – a top-level domain name (TLD) and a Second-Level Domain (SLD). In the above illustration, my-best-domain is the SLD, and .com is the TLD. While you can choose the Second-Level Domain of the domain name to be anything that is open for registration, there is a certain number of TLDs to pick from. The TLDs can be generic (gTLDs) or country-code (ccTLDs), and can be registered for a fixed period of time between 1 and 10 years. They may have additional specifications with regard to the registrant.
As the domain is just a hostname and nothing more than that, you demand a website hosting package where you have to add it. In such a way, when you type it in a web browser, it will display the content that you have in the account, i.e. it will show your web portal. You can have a domain registered with a particular provider and receive the hosting service from another, even though a lot of service providers offer both solutions and it is more time-saving to manage everything from one single website hosting Control Panel GUI. Either way, since the domain registration and the website hosting account are different services, you have to point the domain to the server where it will be added as hosted. To do that, you need to change a specific setting, or record, of the domain - the commonly named nameservers. Each hosting supplier has at least 2 nameservers - ns1.merwindomains.com and ns2.merwindomains.com, for instance. The website hosting Control Panel that you use for your domain name offers you the option to alter the name servers and point the domain to one hosting supplier or another.
As soon as the domain is pointed to a given domain hosting firm and is added to their web servers, you will get different services. The most essential one is that the site files that you host on the server will now be exhibited when you type your domain in a browser. You will also be able to set up e-mailbox accounts like name@my-best-domain.com and use webmail or an email client to handle them. Whether you manage a personal or a business site, being accessible online and being able to create email mailboxes with your domain name are the two most essential things that you get with a web hosting package. In case you own a business site – it will represent your business before your visitors or clients. For that reason you require a trustworthy company that will deliver a reliable and stable hosting service.
Other online services that you receive by hosting a domain with us include: File Transfer Protocol access to upload and download files easily, domain name forwarding, email auto-responders and mailing lists, and the option to set up and edit certain domain records from your Hepsia web hosting CP.