Help 2 Design » Domain and Hosting

What is subdomain and how do I create?

Ranjith — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:41:47 +0000

A subdomain is nothing but a domain which is the part of parent domain. Consider "about.example.com". Here "example" is a subdomain of the "com" top-level domain (TLD) while "about.example.com" is a subdomain in the domain "example.com". Like this you can create any type of subdomain under your domain name.
You can think of file system hierarchy, where domain could be equal to a folder and any other folder inside this could be equal to subdomain. This subdevision can go up to 127 deep and whole domain name should not exceed a total length of 255 characters.

Creating any number of subdomain is a very simple process and it also depends on your hosting package. Some hosting company don't allow you to make subdomains or restrict number of subdomains.

Simple steps to create subdomain:

1. Open your Control Panel given by your website hosting company.
2. Click the "Domain Control Panel" or "Domains".
3. Select the domain name under which you want to create subdomain.
4. Click the "Manage/Create Subdomains" or "Add Subdomain" button.
5. Write subdomain name and if required write directory path with which your subdomain will be associated.
6. Click the "Submit" button.
7. Thats all. Subdomain will be ready within an hour.

How do I upload my web site files?

Ranjith — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 07:23:22 +0000

Uploading web site files can be done in many ways. Most popular and easy way is through FTP. You will be provided a FTP account when your hosting account was created. There are number of softwares are available to access your FTP account. For examole CuteFTP, smatFTP or Ws_FTP.

Install any one of the softwares to your system and give the following information.

Address/Host Name: This will be your domain name or IP address.
Username: This is the FTP "username" which is given by the host.
Password: This is the FTP "password" which is given by the host.
Port: The default port number for FTP is 21. For Most FTP programs you will not need to add this information. It will use port 21 by default.

Once you provide all the information, software will open your directory in server. Now drag and drop your website files to your FTP account, which is same as copying files from one folder to another.

These files become live online instantaneously.

What is Webhosting? Where can I host my Website?

Harsha — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 19:22:52 +0000

Web hosting allows any website to be accessed from anywhere in the world through Internet. For hosting a website, you need a server. If you don't know what is a server, it is just a computer having software to send the web pages depending on the request by browsers. There are different ways we can host our website depending on the size and complexity of the website and facilities available.

Hosting in own computer: You can host your website in your own computer. This is possible, still most of the websites don't do this because of the complexity involved in maintaining the web server. You need to have a server that is always switched ON, You need 24 Internet connection with high bandwidth enough to serve the level of visitors, You need to take care of maintenance, security from virus etc, You need a static IP address for making DNS(domain name servers) to identify the address of particular domain name. Because of all these limitations, most of the websites use one of the methods explained bellow.
Shared web hosting: This is the most popular and cheapest way of web hosting. Here, a common server will be used for hosting a number of website. Web hosting companies will maintain their servers in data centers. Company will take care of all maintenance tasks. It will charge a websites on the server depending on the space they are using, bandwidth(data transferred per month) used by website, other facilities like database, software, languages supported, server speed, uptime etc. Main disadvantages of this type of hosting is, Owners of each websites will not have full access of the server, and they cannot install the software they need and they cannot change the settings/ configurations of the server. Also, If one website is utilising more system resources, other websites will suffer.
Virtual Dedicated Servers: Here, one web server will be divided in to a number of virtual servers. Using this we can overcome basic disadvantages of shared hosting. Service providers will give you guaranty for particular amount of system resources like processor cycles and Internet speed.
Dedicated servers: In This type of hosting, Webhosting companies will provide full server to the customers. Commonly you will not have need for this type of hosting unless you have a heavy website with high visitors and lot of processing is needed in for your server side scripts. In dedicated hosting, there are mainly two types called managed servers and root servers. In managed servers, hosting company will take care of all managing tasks of the server, where in root server, customer will have full access to the server and he can control everything in the server.

How to register a Domain Name?

Harsha — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:53:54 +0000

If you want to have your own website, first you have to select an appropriate domain name. For that you need to select a domain that reflect the content of your website. This will help in search engine ranking and bringing more visitors who are interested in the topic of your website.

For searching the domain name, there are many tools available. You can go to who.is and type that domain that you are interested. It will give you information about that domain, and if it is available. If the domain is already registered, you have to select a different domain.

After selecting the domain, you have to register it in a domain registrar.There are many domain registrars available if you search the web, example: yahoo domains, 1and1, GoDaddy, Rediff domains, Indiatimes domains etc. They will charge you a registrating charge depending on the TLD(top level domain like .com, .net, .in, .org, .us etc) and the registering company.

After the website name is registered, You need to have a web hosting to make your website public. For this, you have to follow the instruction in my next article.