Understanding Domain Names and Web Hosting Basics

The address and the building

A domain name is the address people type to find you. Web hosting is the building where your site actually lives — a server, or space on one, that stores your files and delivers them to visitors. The two are separate products, often bought from the same company, and understanding that split saves a great deal of confusion later.

You do not buy a domain name outright. You register it for a fixed term, usually one to ten years, through a registrar. A .co.uk typically costs £8 to £15 a year, while a .com tends to sit between £12 and £20. Be wary of first-year offers: the renewal price is the one that matters, and it is often two or three times the introductory rate.

The registrant — the person or business named on the registration — owns the domain. Put your business name and an email address you genuinely read on that record, not your web designer's. If you ever part ways, recovering control of a domain registered in someone else's name is slow and awkward. Some country domains also require a local presence, so check before you commit to an overseas extension.

How a name finds its server

Behind every domain sits the Domain Name System, which works like a phone book for the internet. Your domain's nameservers hold a set of records that tell the wider web where to send traffic and email. The main ones you will encounter are:

• A records — point the domain to a server's numeric IP address.
• CNAME records — create aliases, so www can follow the main domain.
• MX records — route email. Get these wrong and your hello@ address stops working while the website carries on fine.
• TXT records — used for verification and for anti-spoofing measures that keep your messages out of spam folders.

When you change a record or move to new nameservers, the update spreads across the internet. That process, called propagation, usually takes minutes but can take up to 48 hours. Plan any move for a quiet period, and never do it the day before a campaign launch or a big client deadline.

Renewals: the boring bit that costs real money

Almost every domain disaster story begins with an expired card. Turn on auto-renew, keep the payment details current, and set a calendar reminder a month before expiry as a backstop.

If a domain does lapse, the clock runs roughly like this:

• Grace period — often around 30 days. The site may go offline and email will stop, but you can usually renew at the normal price.
• Redemption period — a further 30 days or so, during which restoring the name typically costs £70 to £100 or more.
• Release — after that, anyone can register it, including a competitor or a speculative buyer.

Expiry notices go to the registrant email address, so if that inbox is abandoned you will hear nothing. If you use the domain for business email, the damage is invisible to you until a client's invoice bounces back — by which point you may have lost the work.

Choosing hosting by what the site actually does

Hosting plans vary wildly, but for most freelancers and small firms the decision comes down to four shapes. Shared hosting, at roughly £3 to £10 a month, is perfectly adequate for a brochure site with a few thousand visits. Managed hosting, £15 to £40 a month, handles updates, backups and security for you — worth it if you would rather not think about a server. A virtual private server, £20 to £100 or more, suits a busy shop or a site with a developer attached. Dedicated servers are for heavy, unusual workloads and rarely make sense for a solo operator.

Look past the storage figure. Check the visitor or bandwidth allowance, how many databases you get, the PHP memory limit and worker count, and any cap on outgoing email. A shop with 2,000 products and 30,000 monthly visits needs considerably more than the cheapest tier, and squeezing it into one causes slow pages and lost sales.

What to expect from a hosting provider

Support quality separates a good host from a cheap one long before performance does. Ask these questions before you pay:

• Hours and time zone — can you reach a human at 9am on a Tuesday, UK time?
• Channels — ticket, live chat or phone. Freelancers usually want chat; agencies often prefer tickets they can track.
• Response targets — a stated first-response time, not a vague promise of support.
• Backups — how often they run, how long they are kept, and whether a restore costs extra.
• SSL certificates — included and renewed automatically, or an annual task you must remember?
• Migrations — will they move your existing site, free or for a fee, and what downtime is involved?
• Exit terms — can you download a full backup and leave without penalty?

Test them before you need them. Send a pre-sales question about something specific and see how quickly and clearly they reply. That single exchange tells you more than any feature list.