Domain Names, Web Hosting & Email Explained

This is the part of website creation that the average person will encounter, especially if they are an individual consultant or small business owner, unless you have your domain registered for you, then you have probably used a domain name registrar and it’s under your control. Here is all you need to know about web hosting and domain names explained in simple, clear language.

There is one fundamental thing that is essential to understand about domain names, website hosting, and email hosting; while they can all be supplied by the same provider (that would be us!), they are all individual components and can be managed separately from each other.

First Grab Your Domain Name

So you have your domain name, that’s your mycompany.com name that you registered at a Domain Registrar or with us at HostAsean. The domain itself is more important than the web or email hosting since it controls access to both of these things, so it is best to make sure you control your own domain name, even if you have to spend a bit of time learning how the registrations and renewals are handled and keeping track of everything. It is pretty easy to buy a domain name and web hosting through the same company, but they’ll still be listed in your account as separate items.

Your domain name is your address on the web, without it you don’t exist online, so for everyone’s sake please remember where you registered it and keep your contact email address up to date so you can retrieve any login details later (since you’re bound to forget them as you’ll log in only once a year to pay the renewal fee). If you’re really on the ball you can manually renew a domain and sometimes find a coupon for a bit of a discount, or for everyone else just pop it on auto-renewal and the domain registrar will email you before your card expires.

At this stage you will have accumulated one set of login details – for the domain registrar’s website and domain control panel, keep these logins safe and you’ll need to jot down a few more details as you get all the components set up.

Now For The Web Hosting

Next you need a website and hosting, both website and email are usually handled by the same server when hosting on typical cPanel web hosting that you will encounter.

Sign up for your web hosting and then all you have to do is log into the cPanel and start setting up your website. However if you registered your domain name on one company and web hosting on another there is one more step to do before activating your website. Along with the emails about your new hosting configuration you’ll be given a set of nameservers, ours are ns1.hostasean.com, ns2.hostasean.com and ns3.hostasean.com – you now need to give this information to your domain registar. If that wasn’t us, visit your domain registrar, e.g. GoDaddy, NameCheap, or whichever you used, and log in to your account. Find the domain control panel or list of the domain names you own – there should be an option to “Change Nameservers” or similar, look around until you find it, then click on it, enter the nameservers for our server, save the update and you are all done so just log out.

Your Domain Name is Massively Important

Even if you have ended up with a terrible name, it’s still your name and has an established presence on the internet – this is the value of the name. Different domain names get established in different timeframes depending on the popularity of the site and the content, basically how much Google likes you. Every marketing, SEO, or advertising campaign you go ahead with adds more value to your domain name and your brand, as does every time you hand out a business card – and so over time this becomes a very important thing to protect.

Don’t let your Domain Name Vanish

A surprisingly common scenario I’ve found is people that forget where they registered their domain name, which is often separate from their website hosting, and one day they suddenly need access to it but are stumped as to where to start.

What about a Country Specific Domain?

Can I have a country domain name like .kh / .th / .kh / .sg / .my / .vn / .uk / .au or others? The answer is yes, but each country manages their domain names differently – and with varying levels of automation. So while registering a .co.uk or .com.au is a pretty simple process just as easy as registering a .com, whereas in many Southeast Asian countries for example, there are stricter controls and requirements – commonly you must have a business name registration in the country and then you are permitted to have a matching domain name with the country extension. The great thing about this is that it is much easier to get a great name, and if your market is only in that country, it’s often a good solution if you have the right documents in order. Read our blog post to learn how to register .kh domain names in Cambodia.

I Like the sound of .Asia

So do many other people, Asia is booming and the market for your business could well be growing fast.

We like .asia as an alternative to a .com, where you can’t find a good .com. Recently a customer found an unregistered 6-letter .com, even one that includes a dictionary word – very surprised something that short is still not registered so considered it a pretty lucky find. Finding a good .com these days can be an impossibility, and usually you will need to append descriptor text to your name such as industry or location. Let’s say there is a company based in Singapore called Media Library, or some such generic name, this company could never find something like medialibrary.com available, so would have to go for medialibrarysingapore.com or grab the country specific .com.sg domain, but that’s not much good if your market is international. A good alternative is medialibrary.asia, if they are focusing on the Asian market.

Need some tips on choosing the perfect domain name? Once you’ve picked a great name, head on over to our domain checker to register your domain name.