The basic of a Domain Name and Web Hosting

For the world to see our website, you need to purchase at least two things.

1. Web Server provided by a web hosting company
2. Domain Name

So, What is a web server?

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Don’t panic by hearing the word web server.

A web server is nothing but a computer with no mouse or keyboard and it accepts requests from a browser and sends back a website page as a response.

But unlike our personal computer, the webserver is a publicly accessible computer. That means anybody on the internet can access a web server.

This is quite the opposite of our computer. Unless you let them, Your personal computer can not be accessed by anyone else but you.

We need a web server to store our website pages and files. This way, people all over the world, with the internet connection, can access your website pages.

So, How do we get a web server?

Simple, A web hosting company will provide us a web server when you pay them the monthly or yearly rent.

Best examples of a web hosting company are:

• SiteGround
• Nexcess, A LiquidWeb Brand
• Kinsta
  

But how do we access a Web server in order to access a website?

To recap, your website is nothing but a collection of web pages and media files. Web pages are files too.

These are files are stored inside a computer called Web Server.

So, in order to access the website pages stored on the webserver, we need to connect to that web server using a web browser.

Be it our personal computer or a web server, every computer will have a unique number so that we can identify and access the contents of it.

This unique number is called the IP address.

And every computer will have a unique IP address.

So, technically, if you know the IP address of a particular web server, if you enter that IP address into a browser, you can access the website and files stored on that web server.

But, if you love a website, you’ll be accessing it again and again, right?

So, it’s tough to remember which IP address belongs to a which website.

Because typing 104.18.4.9 to access my website usablewp.com is hard.

Anyway, since we are humans, most of us will have trouble remembering numbers, smart people over the internet invented domain names.

So, What is a Domain Name?

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google.com

This is a domain name.

udemy.com

This is a domain name too.

A Domain Name is part of URL.

But, a domain name is not an alternative to an IP address.

A domain name is just cover-up to an IP address.

So, instead of tying an IP address, all we have to do type a corresponding domain name to access a web server and website pages inside it.

Anyway, How do we link a Domain Name and IP address of a web server?

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We use something called Domain Name System (DNS) to link a particular web server’s IP address with a Domain Name.

For example, my web server’s IP address is 104.18.41.159.

But using DNS, I linked that web server’s IP address to a domain name called criya-soft.com

So, when someone types criya-soft.com into the browser, the browser will convert that domain name to the IP address and sends a request to my webserver.

Once my web server receives the request from the browser, based on the URL, my web server will send a particular website page as the response.

So, at the end of the day, the browser will still connect to our website using an IP address doing the heavy lifting of domain to IP address conversion for us.

Wait, How does a Web Browser can convert a Domain name to an IP address?

Simple, Using a DNS server.

DNS Server is like a phone directory where it stores what IP address is linked to what Domain name.

How does a browser on our personal computer can access the DNS Server?

Simple, our internet service provider will put a small DNS server inside the Internet Modem they give us.

That’s all how everything is linked.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

That’s exactly what you need to know about a Domain Name and a web hosting service in a clear and concise way.

If you want to learn about how to create a WordPress website, please read the following article.