Hosting of Your Domain (Site)

Now that you have registered your domain name, the next step is for it to be "hosted".

If you are familiar with computer system you can set up your own computer to host your domain. What you need to do is to get a computer (called server) and set it up so that it can store programs and data and allow other computers in the internet to access what are stored in your server. Doing it yourself in hosting your own site has many disadvantages:

1. You need to perform the necessary system operations like maintenance, secondary storage (backup), administration and update of system.
2. You need to keep your server running 24/7 if you want it to be available to your visitors 24/7.
3. Your server needs to be secure (prevent hacking, virus and other unauthorized activities by others) and reliable (you have to keep it running most of the time). 4. In addition to providing excellent cooling to prevent overheating you may even need to have another server running concurrently as a "mirror". In this way, in case one goes down, the other can take over.
5. You may have to pay extra to your internet service provider (ISP) more.

It is therefore very time consuming and costly to perform the hosting function. Most people and companies therefore outsource the hosting function to hosting service providers. Most domain name registrars provide hosting services too. The other way around is also true. The three domain registrars (Yahoo!, IX WebHosting, StartLogic) in the previous posting, provide hosting services too.

Jacob Gan

Domain Registration

In this posting, I shall discuss how you can register for a domain name.

I shall briefly introduce the domain name system (DNS). Every computer in the internet has a unique numerical address (consist of a string of numbers and dots called IP address) so that two computers know the identity of the other. For humans, a string of numerical numbers may not make much sense. The DNS was therefore invented to correlate the numerical address to a word (which we call domain name). The domain name must therefore also be unique, otherwise given a domain name the unique computer cannot be identified.

In the human world, there is more than one "Jacob Gan". When a system tries to communicate with "Jacob Gan", more than 100 persons may be pointed to. It has no way of knowing which the correct "Jacob Gan" is, unless other qualifiers are added to identify the correct "Jacob Gan". This is one reason why the human world is so much more complicated and confusing, but in some ways more interesting as a result. DNS prevents this confusion from happening in the internet.

Since the domain names are unique, when you try to register for a domain name, it must not already been registered by another party. Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's system of unique identifiers. This function was originally performed under U.S. Government contract by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).

The registrar that you try to register your domain name is therefore an agent of ICANN. The better known registrars include

1. Yahoo!

2. IX WebHosting

3. StartLogic


You have the option of registering your domain name for 1 year, or 2 years, or even 5 years. You can continue the registration. However, you have to pay the new registration fee before the expiry of the current registration if you do not want your domain name deregistered. The registration fee varies from registrar to registrar and most of them are in the region of $5 to $20 per year.

The next posting will be on hosting of your site, by yourself or by another.

Jacob Gan

Start of Online Business Blogging

I have been delaying commencing my blogging here for fear that it would consume too much of my time and energy.

Now that I have overcome that fear, hope you will not only enjoy, but benefit from my writings as well. My postings will mainly be in the form of articles on various aspects of online business. Why bother to write on such a popular topic when there is already an abundance of such materials? There are selfish as well as altruist reasons.

The selfish reasons are many. Since I am into online business education I need to gain recognition as an authority in accordance with the adage "publish or perish". An educator needs to live by example, or walk-the-talk. As online business is a practical business, to gain credibility, I need to be in it and ensure that my online business succeeds. I also need to learn.

Blogging and other online publishing provide excellent platforms for folks who need or want to publish quickly. There are therefore the dangers of abuse, exaggeration and errors.

For the sake of both altruism and my selfishness, please therefore comment on any of my blogs whenever you feel you can contribute.

Jacob Gan

Some of My Web Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5