Ask Lisa: What are hosting accounts and domain names?

What are hosting accounts and domain names?

This is one of the questions I hear frequently from clients. They have an idea of what a hosting account and a domain name are, but it’s usually pretty vague and they’re not sure how it applies to them and the website they’re asking me to design for them.

So, here’s the analogy: building a website is like building your own house

Domain name (example: www.DomainName.com) = your parcel of land/street address

The domain name is the address or “URL” at which your website will be located. It’s how people will find you on the web. My domain name is www.LisaRoberts.com. A domain name is leased on a yearly basis, generally costing about $9 per year.

Hosting account = the house

Even though you’ve purchased a lot/address, until you’ve built the house, you still don’t have anywhere to put all of your belongings. A hosting account is the place where you store all of your site pages and content (on a server). A hosting account involves a monthly fee, sometimes payable in yearly increments.

Once you’ve leased a domain name (example: www.DomainName.com) and gotten a hosting account, your web designer can build your site and upload the content onto the server. Once the content is on the server, the website is “live” and anyone who goes to the URL/address can see it.

{If you’re in the market for a domain name or hosting account, take a look at the GoDaddy.com recommendation on my “Stuff I Like” page.}