How the web works

Alan Willoughby

There are many parts to having a site on the web. Many of my customers are confused about how it works and the many pieces involved.

The Domain Name

The first step is having a domain name. There used to only be one place to get them. The government saw this as a monopoly a few years ago and stepped in to change that. Now there are many places to buy and competitve pricing. Once you have your domain the internet needs to know where it "lives" to be able to find it. That is called the DNS.

DNS

The DNS means Domain Name Server. It is essentially a database of web addresses. Your domain name is not actually a name, but a number and the database keeps track of this number and points to your domain. Each company who has a domain number shares their information with all the other name servers.

Web Hosting

When you first get your domain name, the selling company will point to their own name server by default - usually with a under construction page. Once you have a hosting company, you will need to change your DNS settings to the one they provide (ie: dns1.myhostingcompnany.com). After doing this, it will usually take a few days before the information trickles out to the entire web and people can find your site.

When you buy your domain, the domain company will usually give you a free limited page template system and try to sell you web hosting. The web hosting they sell you may not be the best value - but you do not have to have your hosting with the same company you buy your domain from. It pays to do some research here. Bear in mind that we do not work on domain registrar's template systems.

Each hosting company offers it's own set of services, options and pricing. In addition, there are two basic types of servers (worth mentioning here) - Windows and Linux. Many people think if they run Windows on their computer they should get Windows servers. That it not true. All of the sites we have built are running on Linux servers. And being open source software (free), the cost of Linux hosting is almost always cheaper.

In addition to the type of hosting, you also need to consider the amount of disk space available, the amount of bandwidth available and the services offered. Most small sites will take years to use all the disk space that most hosting companies offer in the basic plans.

As for services offered, we prefer to use php for a programming language. Programming is used for web forms, databases and interactivity on a site. And speaking of databases, you should make sure the hosting company offers at least mysql database as part of their plan.

ISP

The ISP is your internet service provider. This is the company you use to access the internet (ie: verizon, earthlink, etc.). The ISP is the repository for all the nameserver information. When you dial in to your ISP and request a site, it needs to be in their database before you can find it. Big companies (such as verizon) update their databases frequently. Smaller companies sometimes do not. That is why other people may be able to see your site and you can't.

This is an abbreviated synopsis. For more details on this, see http://computer.howstuffworks.com/. Fortunately for you, you don't need to know any of this. We can take care of all of this for you.