Domains and Hosting
Websites don't just exist by themselves. There are several pieces that need to work together well - domain names, DNS, and hosting. We can register a domain name for you, configure the necessary DNS records and provide safe, fast and reliable managed WordPress hosting
Three Pieces That Make The Internet Work
After building your website, it needs to be online, so your visitors and customers can access it from anywhere in the World.
- Websites don't just exist by themselves. There are several pieces that need to work together well - domain names, DNS, and hosting
- A domain name is the address of your website that people type in the browser’s URL bar to visit your website. For example, ours is yourcomputerguy.co.nz. If your website was a house, then the domain name would be its address.
- DNS is a directory of website names that match the corresponding server addresses. It tells your computer where in the world the website you are looking for is located and how to get it to you on the screen
- Web hosting is where all the files of your website live – the home page, all the services and products you offer, blogs, images, and so on
How The Internet Works In a Nutshell
The World Wide Web consists of millions of computers all working together
- The World Wide Web (Internet) is a huge network of computers (commonly called servers) that inter-connect through cables. These cables surround the whole world
- To easily identify the servers, each is assigned a series of numbers called IP address – four blocks on numbers from 1 to 255, for example, 157.240.8.35
- There are almost 4 billions of usable IP addresses. Some are not used at all and some can have up to several thousand websites on them!
- When you browse the Internet, you don't type the series of numbers... you use the website's name and DNS (Domain Name System) helps with that!
What Is DNS?
Imagine having to type something like "157.240.8.35" every time you want to visit Facebook!
- Computers love numbers! Recognising and remembering the IP addresses is not a problem for them, but human memory isn't as good..
- DNS is a directory of website names that match the corresponding server addresses. Think of it as a phonebook if you are old school, or your smartphone contact list if you are tech-savvy
- If you want to call your friend John, you don't have to remember that his number is 021 000 1234, you just look it up in your contacts
- 30 years ago, when the Internet was very small, each computer had its own version of the phonebook – imagine how difficult it was to maintain when a new server was added to the network!
- The DNS – Domain Name System - was invented. It allows all computers in the world to know the location of where every website on the Internet.
- There are several hundred or even thousands of computers that constantly synchronise with each other and keep the records up to date.
Click the picture to expand it
What Is Hosting?
If the domain is the address of your house, then web hosting is the actual house that address points to
- Web hosting is where all the files of your website live – the home page, all the services and products you offer, blogs, images, and so on
- When someone enters your domain name in a browser, the name gets translated into the IP address of your web hosting company’s server. The server has all the website files and sends them to your computer so it can be displayed on your screen.
- Web hosting is a very competitive industry that is usually outsourced to 3rd world countries. You could host your website for as low as $5 a month
- On the other hand, there are companies charging several times more and you may be wondering – why such a big difference?
Problems With Cheap Hosting
Saving the money? Who doesn't like that? Well, cheap hosting could be costing you more than you think...
- To keep the costs low, cheap hosting companies usually stuff hundreds of other websites on the same server. Does your computer perform well when you have hundred programs or tabs open?
- You get very limited amount of storage. A typical WordPress website requires about 1GB of space. Add emails, databases, and backups and you'll need at least double that
- You will be limited to a certain number of visitors. If you have several people browsing your website, the performance will suffer
- Support is almost non-existent. Even if you do manage to get a hold of a real human being, with the culture and language barriers and the different time zones, it’s going to be difficult to get proper help
- You will be fully responsible for the site security, speed, WordPress updates, backups and monitoring uptime
- Do you really think a company that is making $5 a month from you will make sure your website remains online, loads quickly, and stays virus-free? Do you think they will do backups for you? The answer to all these questions is NO.
All these companies are owned by the same company EIG.
They suck. Don't believe us? Google it 🙂
Our Hosting Is Different
We offer premium managed web hosting and take care of backups, security, uptime, and performance for you
- Our hosting package is specifically optimized for WordPress
- Speed - important for Google and your visitors experience. We use Australia and United States servers with CDN (Content Delivery Network) to optimize page load times
- Automatic updates of WordPress and plugins. Neglecting these is a sure way to get your website hacked
- SSL (HTTPS) certificates. In the past, it was only required for e-commerce and banking websites but becoming more and more important for all websites
- Security. Nobody wants to have tasteless ads and malware show up on their homepage. If your website does get hacked, we fix it. For free!
- Nightly backups, stored for 30 days on separate servers
