If you are planning to have a web presence today you have multiple way. You can utilize the social media, use existing advertisement site etc. But having your own website with a proper domain name give it a more reliable look.
To make you presence on the internet via a website the first thing you need to do is register a domain.
What is a domain?
When we want to setup a website we will be doing it on a web server. Typically machines connected on the internet are allocated am IP address like 222.11.22.23.
Now if your website is setup on this server remembering this address is going to be difficult for people visiting you website. To eliminate this issues we have domain names, i.e. an easy to remember name which can then be further associated with you server's IP address.
Domain name have there rules and usually have an suffix like com, net, org etc. Today you have a wide variety of choices from country code to business idea etc.
You can see complete list of these possibilities at https://data.iana.org/TLD/tlds-alpha-by-domain.txt. The list provided here are called the Top Level Domains i.e. abc.com abc.net etc. There are more sub level of the domains which you can look up on the https://www.icann.org/ website.
You need to think of a suitable name for you domain as well as the suffix called as the TLD or sub level domain.
Once you have settled on you domain name you need to register it.
You can also search the availability of domain on different site which provide domain registration facility.
From our observation we do not recommend searching the availability of domain. But a better idea is to have multiple possibilities listed in order of preference and register the first available.
What is a Registrant?
The registrant is the registered name holder of a domain. This person or entity owns the rights to use the domain for their website and email, as long as they pay the domain fee every year.
What is a Registrar?
To get a domain name allocated to you, you will need to find a Registrar. A registrar is the middleman. It is an accredited organization that registers a domain with a registry, on behalf of the registrant. one.com is an accredited registrar with ICANN.
- A domain name registrant is an individual or entity who registers a domain name.
- During the registration of a domain name, a registrant enters into a contract with a registrar.
- The contract describes the terms under which the registrar agrees to register and maintain the requested name.
- After registration, registrants manage their domain name settings through their registrar.
Generally many hosting providers will let you register a domain through them also.
Hosting and web space.
To put you website content you need a web-server with suitable components like server side scripting, database, CMS facility etc. The easiest way is to buy a hosting package from hosting service provider.
Usually a hosting service provider will provide you a suitable LAMP stack or similarly with nice web based control panel and also help you in registering the domain.
With the hosting provider package the setup of domain pointing to the server is eliminated as the hosting provider will do the setup for you.
Once you have settled with a suitable package do the payment and you should the get your login credentials to you hosting server where you can put up you site contents.
finally point your browser to the site name and you should see you site contents.
Domain Control Panel V/S Control Panel
It is important to understand that you domain name and the web-space are to different things. When you register a domain name you should get login credentials for something called as a Domain Control Panel. If you have taken web space or hosting service you should also get credentials for the Hosting Control Panel.
Domain Control Panel
The domain control panel is a web interface that allows a domain registration holder to manage his/her registered domain(s).
The domain control panel basically allows you to set or point your domain to the web-server where you would be hosting your website.
It is very important that you have access to the domain control panel as it will help you to move easily from one hosting provider to another by updating the entries for your domain.
One can use the domain control panel to mange the domain contacts and the password for your registered domain. Some domain control panels may give you more services.
Control Panel for hosting
The hosting control panel is an access (generally web based) which allow you to manage you web space and other settings related to you website. Examples include cPanel, Plesk, My20i, CloudPanel, OpenPanel and Enhance.
Control panels allow you to manage file and folders, setup and manage databases for you web applications or CMS, setup mail ids, backup/restore you site content etc.
Basically it the interface to manage you site contents.
In conclusion
As you domain name will become you identity on the web make sure to renew the same timely as well as make sure you have access to the domain control panel.