Many times I get clients asking me the difference between domain and hosting. Let me try explaining this in very simple words…
What is domain?
A domain name usually has two parts, which are separated by a dot. The first part will be the name of your site (like ours is wisdomworks), and the second is a domain extension, like .com, .co, .in, .org (like ours is .co). Each of these domains is unique. This means that you can’t have another website with the same name, like there can’t be two wisdomworks.co websites.
What is Hosting?
When it comes to hosting, you can try to understand it as the storage location where your website content files (or say, the entire design, with images, text, etc.) are placed.
When someone accesses your website by entering your domain name (or your web address), the domain name points them to the files in this storage location (or the web server). It’s only then that a person can see your website online.
This should make it very clear to you that you need both a domain name and hosting to create a website.
Where can you get good hosting from?
There are many domain providers like GoDaddy, Hostinger, BlueHost, etc. from whom you can purchase a domain. However, buying it once doesn’t mean you have it forever. It’s like a lease… you can use it for the amount of time you buy it for. You must ensure that you renew your domain name before it expires, else your website will go down.
When it come to hosting, you must take a very informed decision, because it directly impacts the speed f your website. Whenever you are choosing a hosting provider, look out for one that has uptime rating of at least 99.5%. If your host server is slow, it won’t matter what you do to speed up your site, it will still remain sluggish. And nobody likes a slow website.
You can choose to buy hosting from the same domain provider where you buy your domain from.
