Domain Name and Web Hosting

Website Hosting and Domain Names...

Web Hosting is the parking space rented on the Internet for a website.

Hosting is really no more than your website's files on a computer (called a web server) with a large, fast and reliable network connection to the rest of the Internet.

Of course it's not quite that simple. In reality a good web host should provide the following as a minimum:

• A secure temperature controlled environment for the web servers
• 24hr FTP access to service the website remotely
• Fast network connections
• Enough web space and bandwidth
• Full server redundancy
• Engineers on-site to respond to any failures immediately
• Regular daily server back-ups made
• Back-up power system in case of mains failure
• Technical facilities to enable functionality to be added to a website such as CGI, SSI, .htaccess, telnet, PHP, ASP

Don't worry if all that stuff is meaningless to you! The whole point is that I can arrange the hosting of your website without the hassle and worry of all the technical mumbo-jumbo.

A Domain Name is part of your website's address used to identify you.

A domain name is just like a personal or business name and can be whatever you want provided it's available. It can contain a mixture of letters and numbers, but only hyphens ( - ) and underscores ( _ ) are permitted as special characters. Usually, you would want something that identifies with your business and preferably contains your main business keyword(s).

A domain extension is the bit after the domain name itself - after the last dot. This can be a country level or a global extension, eg .co.uk for the UK and .com for global. Unless your business operates internationally, it's best to have a UK country level domain. It's favoured more on UK version search engines and the risk of having to deal with international enquiries is minimised, particularly if it's not clear you're UK only on your website. It can also be a bit cheaper.

And a Domain Name and Web Hosting give you...

Your website live on the Internet!

The web hosts I use - SupaNames - provide various levels of hosting packages depending on a website's requirements. They can also register a domain name as part of the package. Domain names are purchased for a one or two year period after which they'll need to be renewed. Hosting is also for a one or two year period depending on the package. One or more domain name based e-mail addresses are included too!

I can sort out all the following:

• Purchase domain names and hosting on your behalf in your name
• Sort out the technicalities for you
• Arrange domain transfers if required
• Upload and service your website
• Provide you with the technical details, eg for setting up e-mail addresses or in case you wish to dump me in the future!

And it goes without saying I can look after your website post-publication with website management.