If you want to create a professional website or blog you need to purchase a domain and hosting service from a hosting provider.
What is a domain? What about web hosting?
It may seem like a trivial question for industry experts but for those who are approaching the web it is far from obvious: what is the difference between domain and hosting?
Let’s discover the meaning and characteristics of these two terms that are interconnected and often confused with each other.
What is a domain?
The domain is the address that unequivocally identifies the website connected to it: each domain explains to the browser where to go to view the website.
In reality, we can define the domain as a shortcut to remember the IP address, a long numeric string that is complicated to memorize: thanks to the domain it will be easier for users to remember the name of your site, bringing you traffic and potential revenue. An example of a domain is shellrent.com. in fact, the domain name is what the user types to find your business, connected to your web space thanks to DNS management.
Our advice for beginners? Choose a name that is simple, intuitive and inherent to your business: this will make it easier for users to find you.
The levels of the domain
The top level domain includes hundreds of available extensions (TLDs): on our site , you can find a list with more than 800 extensions (.com, .it, .eu). Remember to consider an extension that aligns with your brand and services – why choose a geographic extension of a particular country, if your market of interest is not that country?
The second level domain is the real name that users associate with the site, for example in shellrent.com , .com is the TLD .
The third level domain is used to create an “extension” of your site. In addition to the classic www , subdomains are mainly used for:
- Create a blog: thanks to the subdomain, you can connect your site to your blog, for example with yoursite.com ;
- Create an application: you can connect your site to an application, for example with yoursite.com;
- Create an e-commerce platform: very useful for business users, the creation of e-commerce platforms includes specific spaces, for example with your site .
What is a Web Hosting?
A Web Hosting is a web space hosted on a server: this space is shared with other users, each with their own unique domain but all with the same IP address. What does it mean? The resources of the entire server are shared between the various users, for web projects not linked to each other. Sharing your web space with other users limits your autonomy but allows you to obtain an economical and still performing solution. If you want to opt for greater independence of your site, you can buy a dedicated and unique IP for your website, to improve your web reputation in search engines.
Within your hosting space, all the elements that make up the site are hosted, such as pages, files and images, and any database used for the creation of the site itself.
With a metaphor, we can define hosting as a room within a house: the room represents the web hosting, while the house the server provided by the hosting provider in which the hosting is hosted.
Which Web Hosting Plan to Choose?
The hosting market is full of alternatives and possibilities and you have to pay attention to the choice of hosting provider to get advice on the plan that best suits your needs: in addition to considering the performance, the security and reliability of your site are also elements. fundamental.
We always try to improve our procedures to guarantee you the necessary protection: our payoff The first Italian hosting Security First highlights security as a primary asset in the company, and the attention we devote to the customer thanks to technical support makes us proud. In this regard, to understand how assistance works, we recommend an interview with our Technical Support Manager, Ivo Lauro. If you want to know how we work every day to implement the security of our services, read the article in which we explain what our payoff means for us .
As far as hosting is concerned, we offer you a wide range of solutions: consult our Linux , Windows and Plesk panel proposals . If in doubt, don’t worry, we have all the internal resources to help you make the right choice.
All our plans are scalable in both upgrades and downgrades to guarantee you the best resources for your online project.
Having clear ideas on the difference between domain and hosting and especially on the right hosting to buy will help you in the creation and optimization of your site, allowing you to reach your professional goals in the shortest possible time.
What are you waiting for? Contact us for more information on our plans: we are at your disposal.
