Domain and email hosting
A lot of confusion exists about domain, web, and email hosting; how they work and what the difference is between them. Many hosting providers have their own specializations and one can get the most for the money by selecting the services that meet the best.
The very first step in the process of setting up a domain is registration. This can be done through ICANN-accredited registrars, who collectively maintain the shared registration system (SRS). There are over 500 companies that proffer these services and some of the larger ones are Network Solutions.
As it turns out that the very name is available, reservation of the right to use the domain name is confirmed. As the name is reserved, the next step is to get the domain listed in the “Internet phone book,” also known as the Domain Name Service (DNS). While browsing the Internet, domain names are a convenient way for humans to remember sites and email addresses.
However, computers only understand ones and zeros, so everything must eventually be translated into a number. Every computer on the Internet has what is known as an IP address and it’s a unique number that identifies that particular machine on the network and works very much like a telephone number. Every time someone types a domain name into a browser, the first thing the computer must do is to perform a DNS lookup to find the address of the server for which it’s looking.
Nearly all of the domain registers offer DNS hosting services. As soon as one registers a domain name, the registrar will typically create a DNS listing those points to a common page indicating that the domain is “parked” but that a web site doesn’t yet exist. Email hosting is similar to web hosting in the sense that it needn’t necessarily be hosted by either registrar or web host providers. This is another case of selecting the host that makes the most sense for any particular situation. This is configured by making a change to the DNS records for the domain.