Two things you need to get in order to start editing your index.html are :
- DomainName – like sairam.co.in . You can buy domain names from various registrars like godaddy.com , namecheap.com, mitsu.in (and thousand others) or even directly from the country offering the domain (Ex: for .am, you can get it from amnic.net which usually are the cheaper than offered by other registrars) .
- Hosting – There are loads of options present for this. I use the one from g33k.in which is cheaper than most of them out there (you need a referral to get your hosting on g33k.in). Hosting is one of the option provided bu your registrar(usually) when you buy a domain name. Usually servers are classified as M$ or Linux, I hardly find any Mac hosting except for apple.com
How do they each connect with each other ? - You use name servers to connect DomainName with your hosting provider. They provide you with the name servers to use, usually named ns1.example.com . Then, you need to add DNS entries to point to the IP address provided to you by your hosting provider. These days DNS services are provided free of cost by domain name registrars.
Is that all to know about ? - Yup, that’s almost it, you need to setup your basic services. You need to setup mail and other services.
Would my website be online all the time, I worried about the latencies ? – Depends on the host you are hosting your site on. Consider a host which hosts few number of websites (in 10’s not 1000’s) or get your get your own server to host your websites.
How can I check who owns a website – It is called ‘whois’ . Try checking out in http://whois.domaintools.com/example.com
The domain I want is already taken by someone else, how can I get it – If its a personal website, its highly possible that you will not get it, if the domain is up for sale, you could offer a price to the domain owner. YES, buying/selling domain names is a BIG BUSINESS .
I can not see the owner of a domain, whois says the owner is ‘Privacy Protect’- Domain owners do it in order protect their own privacy. Sending a mail to the listed email address in the whois record forwards the mail to the actual owner. Not all domains provide you the luxury of protecting your privacy . Two of them which do not are .am , .in .
Can I get domain names and hosting for free ? – Yes, domain names on .co.cc are offered free . Try weebly.com for creating a free website which even lets you to point your domain name to it for FREE. There are loads of others, JFGI .
What is example.com ? – It is a reserved domain name, and usually blogs refer to these sites and these sites take all kind of cr@p you can imagine. See RFC 2606 .