Quite often, the website owner complains that he paid the hoster for the website, and he receives a message about the need to pay for services. It turns out that only the hosting is paid, and the letter from the hoster asks to extend the domain.
This misunderstanding sometimes encounters in communication with customers. But it is not their fault here. Hosting, domain, CMS are specific terms relevant to your website, and they are all necessary for the website’s functioning (although the presence of a CMS is not critical). Therefore, it is not surprising that these terms mix into one concept in the minds of website owners – “something needed for the website to work.”
But if you are serious about your website (or decide to do), you should still figure out what’s what. What is the difference between hosting, domain, and CMS website?
Hosting is the house where your website “lives”. It is a place on one of the computers (servers) of the hosting company. Your website’s files, HTML pages, scripts, pictures physically locate (precisely as your computer is in a separate folder, for example, your photos).
Only you have access to the folder on your home computer, and all Internet users have access to the folder with your website.
But how does the browser find out which folder and which hosting you need to take website files to show them to the user? Guests can come to your home, but only if you tell them the address of your home.
A domain is the address of your website. For example, the domain of our website is pbb.lviv.ua.
The network stores a giant “address book” (the so-called domain namespace), which for each domain is specified on which computer in the network files store on this website. Therefore, the browser knows precisely which “home” corresponds to a particular domain.
Let’s move on. Do you have a “Smart Home” system installed in your house? This system allows you to monitor the indicators in the place (temperature, humidity, lights on, or alarm) and automatically control these parameters. For example, turn on the air conditioner if the house is too hot or turn on the light when someone enters the room. That is, the system controls the operation of the house.
The operation of the website controller by CMS – content management system). It shows the desired content on a particular page of the website, sends forms, and puts it in the cart. And, of course, much more.
But the most crucial thing that CMS does is not so much the display of the content as its management – CMS allows you to easily change the content on the website (by analogy with creating a regular Word document). You do not need to learn programming languages to change the text on the page, add pictures, change menu items, add products to the catalog, etc. – all this will help CMS.
Of course, sometimes there are CMS, where it is difficult for a programmer to understand how to change something on the website, but here is a special thank you to the developers of such CMS.
Brief recommendations on choosing a hosting, domain, CMS
Since detailed recommendations are topics for individual articles, I will give only essential (basic) advice:
Hosting and domain – in one place
It is better to choose the company that provides hosting and domain at once.
First, it’s more convenient – you will have one Control Panel instead of two separate ones.
Secondly, it can be cheaper. The company that sells hosting works with domain registrars on a “wholesale” basis, so various promotions can afford to set the price for the domain lower than if you buy it directly from a domain registrar.
Choose from large companies. These are market leaders, time-tested, and thousands of customers.
Each company usually has several tariffs. And although it often seems that they differ only in price the technical characteristics (how much space is available for the website, how fast the processor on the server, etc.).
If you can not find out which rate is correct for you, contact support and tell them which website you choose hosting (promo website or a large online store, with what functionality, etc.) – a specialist will tell you the appropriate rate.
Backups.
Check with the hoster, automatic backups (backups of the website), and how often. Usually, they don’t think about it until something happens, and then it may be too late. Website recovering from a backup is the fast and straightforward way to get rid of a virus on a website.
Important! The owner is you.
Buy hosting and domain only in your name, not in the name of your system administrator. Because when it is released and “disappears” with all access passwords, it will be tough for you to prove to the hosting company that you are the owner of the website.
Domain – not too long and without ambiguous characters.
CMS – choose from the popular ones.
If a commercial website, choose even better from paid popular (Bitrix, NetCat, UMI.CMS, Simpla). They have fewer flaws and mistakes. There are those. Support, updates are released regularly.
You can, of course, take a free CMS, but most importantly – from the popular (Joomla, WordPress, MODx).
And finally, separately about website designers
As a rule, the website designer combines all three things we talked about today. When you register your account in the website designer, the system provides you with hosting, a domain (usually a third level, for example, website123.wix.com), and a website management system – all in one bottle.
After all, it’s convenient, you say, but you will not be quite right – such designers create simple websites quickly, so they work on templates that can not customize to the website’s goals (often no way to customize your website). And the third-level domain name and hosting, in this case, will not belong to you. They will belong to the company that provides this designer. Therefore, your website will quietly “disappear” if something happens to it, and restoring it will be problematic.
Although, of course, in some cases, the use of designers justifies itself. For example, if you need a one-page landing for an advertising campaign for literally a few weeks. In this case, it makes no sense to “steam” with the purchase of your domain and hosting, setting up a CMS, and create a website in the designer will be faster.
If you need the website for a long time, I recommend buying your hosting and domain and choosing a specialist to create the website. Then the website will belong to you, and even if the hosting company “closes”, you can take the latest backup of the website and transfer it to another host.