A Domain Name is the top level address that is used to locate your content. It has the suffix of .com, for example.

The most common domain name is formed from the unique letters that are registered with a central repository to make hostnames memorable. A hostname points to a unique numerical address in Internet Protocol v.4 of 4 hexadecimal numbers such as 192.168.101.015

A distributed index lookup called Domain Name Service (DNS) allows one computer to find another by matching the name to the IP number. This allows you to ignore hard to remember numbers and just type in the more easily remembered letters. And that’s what you type into or link to with your computer’s browser software.

To obtain a domain name it must be unique and then registered in (added to) the Internet central repository database.

A host computer, when placed online, is given a unique IP address from a pool of numbers that a hosting service is allocated. Fortunately you don’t need to know this but the DNS does need to know what name to match it up with.

Therefore you can have a domain name registered to you and have any hosting company give it a IP address and update the DNS database. This database is distributed over many computers and as changes happen is constantly updating, which may take several hours.

For example you register a new domain name by going to 1&1 (1and1.com), and search for an unused name and register it for $5.99 (per year).
Once that has been accepted you go to a hosting company such as Hostgator.com and sign up for a hosting service, which provides you with server processing and storage for $9.95 per month.

Now you tell Hostgator to point their IP address to the 1&1 domain nameserver and your web server is online!

Many other companies offer similar services, either individually or as combo packages, at varying prices and included features.

If you register one or several domain names and don’t plan to put content on them just yet, you can get paid to ‘park’ the name(s) with sedo.com. They point the name to their servers and display advertising, for which you get compensated.

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Then the best choice and most comprehensive hosting, site building, and supportive program is the very popular, whole enchilada, SiteSell.com Best of all – it’s $297 per year, and that’s everything included!