A domain name are the words you type in a browser’s address or URL bar, in order to land into a specific website, or web-page.
For this small space online, web-blog, the domain name is “learnersjourney.net”. The “http://” or “https://” which precedes it denote the protocol that we work with in order to first send a “request” to a DNS (Domain Name Service) server in order to get its registered details or DNS “records”. Which then points us to the IP (Internet Protocol) address hosting a specific website. An IP address looks like a string of numbers separated with a number of dots (127.0.0.1 — in this case, this is an IPv4 address, a “localhost” typically found in a computer even while offline). Each fragment consists of some meaning that tells another computer where to find a resource from the internet. We’ll dabble into more details around IP addresses in a later post, perhaps. For now, let’s focus on how to set up and register a domain name. Just please note, that an IP address, is that, an address in the internet in order to find something, a website, or a web-app hosted somewhere in the public internet. However, not all IP addresses are reachable from the public internet space.
Returning to how to register a domain name.
Mostly, you’ll need to follow these steps.
- Step 1: You need to go to a domain name registrar.
- Like Namecheap.com, Google Domains, Domain.com — the list goes on quite a bit. Please do a quick search online and find what best suits your needs and your budget. For me, I have personally tried NameCheap, Google Domains, and a local registrar from the Philippines called “dot.ph”. These work very nicely from my experience.
- Like Namecheap.com, Google Domains, Domain.com — the list goes on quite a bit. Please do a quick search online and find what best suits your needs and your budget. For me, I have personally tried NameCheap, Google Domains, and a local registrar from the Philippines called “dot.ph”. These work very nicely from my experience.
- Step 2: Once you have selected a domain name registrar.
- You need to look and search for a specific name that you would like your website to have and to be found for. For example, this website blog’s domain name is “learnersjourney”, with an extension of “.net”. More often than not, for most cases that I have come across, the “.com” extension could already be taken. Because please note that once a domain gets an owner, or is registered, you can’t purchase or register that domain name with that extension anymore. You can either try to find other extensions — there’s a lot more now-a-days — for all types of purposes, activities, or business for example. From “.service”, to “.tech”, and so on. There’s a very broad range of extensions that you can choose from when you’re considering what domain name to have. And once you have your pick, purchase the “rent” fee for that domain which normally is billed yearly or for several years depending on the terms for that domain name and for that registrar online. Some domain names cost around a little under Php 500 a year, some may cost around over Php 1,000 per year of ownership. While others, can cost a lot more. So, if you’re on a budget like me, you need to consider this too.
- You need to look and search for a specific name that you would like your website to have and to be found for. For example, this website blog’s domain name is “learnersjourney”, with an extension of “.net”. More often than not, for most cases that I have come across, the “.com” extension could already be taken. Because please note that once a domain gets an owner, or is registered, you can’t purchase or register that domain name with that extension anymore. You can either try to find other extensions — there’s a lot more now-a-days — for all types of purposes, activities, or business for example. From “.service”, to “.tech”, and so on. There’s a very broad range of extensions that you can choose from when you’re considering what domain name to have. And once you have your pick, purchase the “rent” fee for that domain which normally is billed yearly or for several years depending on the terms for that domain name and for that registrar online. Some domain names cost around a little under Php 500 a year, some may cost around over Php 1,000 per year of ownership. While others, can cost a lot more. So, if you’re on a budget like me, you need to consider this too.
- Step 3: Rent a web-host service.
- Please note, that you can either choose to get this at the very beginning, before you register a domain name with a registrar. Or you can choose to rent a website host server or service right after obtaining a domain name to your name.
- My friend, there’s plenty of good web-hosts online. And there’s good value for money too. And it helps to manage your own host as this way, you’ll learn a little more about how servers work in a broad way of things.
- You can try services online or web-hosts like:
- BlueHost
- Hostgator
- Siteground
- Hostinger
- Look into each one and check their reviews from customers and whatnot. Carefully weigh, and consider what it best suited for your needs, your intended purpose, and budget. And try a service. For me, I have personally worked on a website for these 4 web-hosts. And, for me at least, I like SiteGround the best of these because of their stellar customer support service.
- Step 4: Connect your domain name to your web-host service
- Now this is arguably the most technical step in the procedure of acquiring a domain name and pointing it to a location in the internet (and for this case, that location happens to be your web-host – so that you can serve up your website to anybody who might request for it from their browser).
- First you need to check the control panel from the domain name registrar (like from Google Domains, NameCheap, Domain.com et cetera).
- Then, you need to update the “name servers” for that domain name with the name servers that your web-host specifically needs to latch onto. You can find the name servers of your website host from the host’s control panel. This largely depends on what kind of back-end software your web-host uses to administer and manage the server inside, or services available from the web-host. Most web-hosts that I have cited above work with what’s called “C-Panel”. It’s a graphical interface that you’ll see when you log-in to your web-host with your credentials to the back-end. And there’s a very good chance that you’ll find the name servers (which is a string of text that identifies that web-host server) at the domain transfer or domain registration service from inside C-Panel.
- Once you have determined your name servers. Go to your domain name registrar and enter those name servers (usually 2 strings of text, or sometimes 4 strings) to the “DNS records” of your registrar. Specifically you’ll find “name servers” under the DNS records.
- Along with name servers, you can also find other custom DNS records. Like the following (but not limited to these records):
- A record
- TXT record
- CNAME record
- Each of these DNS records, has a specific purpose. For example, if you have the IP address of a server that hosts your website online. You can enter your IPv4 IP address to the “A” record. And that will tell the DNS server to send people who enter your domain name to that IP address when they request your page.
There is a very good chance that once you have entered the correct name servers to the DNS records of your domain name registrar, with the name servers appropriate for your web-host. That you’ll find that after an hour or several hours of propagation that you can reach your web-host’s index page from the domain name when you enter it from your web browser’s address bar.
However, please note also, that you can choose to register your domain name with the specific web-host. As most popular web-hosts offer a way to register your own domain name in-house with their own internal service. Although, in my experience it is slightly more costly when you choose to register a domain name from directly inside a web-host.
Anyway, that’s it for now.
I hope this written guide has been helpful to you. And, I’m sorry that I didn’t ready or prepare enough to be able to offer screenshots or images of the procedural steps. Those would have been more intuitive, especially if this is your first time to register a domain and connect it to a website host or server.
If able to, I’ll update and include some images to help guide fellow-learners with this post.
This brings us to the end of our post, my friends.
My thanks to you for reading this short and quick guide.
Keep learning, my friends. And, best of luck with your own endeavors.
Let us do what we can to help connect tech with helping do some good in our world. Thank you.
Hello there! How are you? My name is Abraham, or, Abe to all my friends, acquaintances, and family.
I’m a young dad, an uncle, an older kuya, and a son. I love learning and putting things together when it comes to small projects around computers, and tech. And for me, I also love food, everyday drink — like coffee, and most furry creatures — like good doggo doggos (goofy doggos), and chonky (very fat, almost circular and literally round) cattos. ^_^ Anyway, I hope good animals also make you chuckle, my friends.
Recently, I was hired to work as an engineer in I.T., specializing in looking after web-servers, maintenance, and a few other stuff.
Thank God! From my end, I had been dreaming to become an engineer in I.T., and have been studying for it for a time now.
We mustn’t stop with our training and study. For we’ll need to keep learning in order for us to remain helpful.
Nawa, ang Panginoon’g Diyos ang Siyang purihin, dakilain, at pasalamatan sa ating mga gawain, at salita.
My friends, may the Lord our God be glorified, honored, and praised – through the kind of work that He called us unto.
Thank you, and for now, that’s mostly it for me. Salamat po!