domain registration - how to setup domain with DNS, IP Address, web host
Author: mufads
This article shows how to setup your domain and explains DNS,
Nameservers, IP Address, Forwarding, domain registration and trouble
shooting.
Introduction and scope
Almost Everyone who knows about the internet knows what a domain
name is. It is what identifies a unique website or email server.
When you send an email to someone@..., the domain.com forms
the domain name. When you type in http://domain.com in the address
bar of your browser, the domain.com is the domain name of the
website you are going to see.
But how does the computer know which page to show when there are
almost infinite number of domain names possible ? How does it know
where to fetch the webpage from ? This article answers these
question and explains what you need to do to register and setup your
domain and tell all the computers in the world that yourdomain.com
should show your web page.
How to choose a domain name ?
There are many top level domains (TLDs) the most popular are
the .com, .net and .org � Countries have their own
like .us, .in, .ca, .au etc and then there is the new breed of
domains like .tv, .info, .ws and so on but the most powerful king of
all is the .com Why ? Because it came first ? In the domain market,
single word domains sell for thousands of dollars and .com costs
around 10 times more than the others and is as difficult to get a
new name. There is a myth that domains with hypnens (dashes) are
better for search engine rankings, I think there may be some truth
in that myth, but domains without dashes always seem to cost more
than the ones with dashes. The best way to register a domain is to
determine the keywords you are going to target by using the free
trial of keyword popularity and competition analysis from
http://wordtracker.com and get a domain with those keywords in it.
Another school of thought abandons this approach and advocates brand
name domains like yahoo.com instead of everything-portal.com
google.com instead of the-only-search-engine.com and ebay.com
instead of online-junk-acutions.com - you get the picture.
Name Servers Explained
Every computer connected to the internet has an ip address that
looks like 123.234.123.234
An ip address consists of 4 numbers separated by dots, each number
ranging from 1 to 255. What this numbers mean is not important for
us, all we need to understand is that each computer on the internet
has a unique ip address and if the GoldenRobot wants to talk to R2D2
on the internet, it has to know the IP address of R2D2 (name
borrowed from the movie Star Wars).
But Wait a minute, does that mean that there are only
256*256*256*256 number of computers that can connect to the
internet, technically yes. But that number is large enough for now
until they start connecting ever microwave and freezer to the
internet (imagine your freezer automatically placing an order for 2
liters of milk to the grocery store when it detects that your milk
stock is diminishing!)
OK, now you must be thinking all the ip address stuff is fine, but
how does it relate to domain names ? Remember that I said "if the
GoldenRobot wants to talk to R2D2, it has to know the IP address of
R2D2 " - but all you give to your computer is the Domain Name of the
website you want to visit, so how can it get the ip address ? Enter
the NameServer.
The job of a nameserver is to resolve a domain name to an ip
address. Simple.
A nameserver is similar to a telephone directory except that instead
of mapping person names to phone numbers, it maps domain names to ip
addresses.
Imagine having just one telephone directory for all the people in
the world ! In the same way, if they had just one nameserver for all
domains, it would be unmanageably huge and all the computers would
have to contact that one nameserver to get the domains resolved to
ip addresses ! Even a super-duper-mega-monster-computer would not be
able to handle such a load !
So we have many nameservers. When you register a domain, you specify
which name server to use.
Now lets take our example
GoldenRobot wants to talk to R2D2
It will have to follow these steps
1> Look at the registrar entry for R2D2 to determine which
nameserver to use
2> Connect to that nameserver and ask it for the ip address of R2D2
3> Connect to R2D2 using this IP address
In reality it is a bit more complicated due nameserver cacheing, and
chained recursive lookups leading to authoritative and non
authoritative responses but our example illustrates the basic
concept and is sufficient knowledge to setup your domain.
One misconception that I would like to clarify, some people think
that each domain name maps to a unique ip address, not true. Just as
many people in a house can share a single telephone number, many
domain names can share a single ip address. The NameServer will
return the same ip address for all of these domains and when the
browser connects to that ip address, it says I am trying to reach
suchandsuch.com domain, the webserver then returns the correct page
for the domain requested. Obtaining a unique ip address (known as
dedicated ip) for your website is usually more expensive than
sharing the ip address.
How to setup your domain name
Form the discussion we just had, you would be able to appreciate
that in order for you to get your domain to point to your webpage,
you need to do the following in theory
1> Obtain the ip address for the web host where your WebPages
reside - this is the webserver ip
2> Make an entry (Called as DNS Entry) in a Nameserver to resolve
your domain name to this ip address.
3> Configure your domain to use this nameserver
Most of the time, step 2 will be transparent to you as most
webservers provide nameservers in which they make the DNS entry for
you when you purchase webspace from them. Also, many good domain
registrars provide their own nameservers that you can use.
While registering a domain or after registering a domain, you will
need to set it up to use two or more nameservers. It is common to
use multiple nameservers so that if one of them is down the others
may be used. You have three options to set the nameservers
1> nameserver provided by your web host
Your webhost will usually have their own nameservers. In their
documentation they may say you need to use something like
ns1.yourwebhost.com and ns2.yourwebhost.com - If you use these, you
need not bother about the webserver ip address or any other
settings, just configure your domain to use these and you are all
set.
2> nameserver provided by the registrar that you register your
domain with
If you use this option, you will need to know the ip address of your
webserver (provided by your webhost). As you will be using the
nameserver provided by your registrar, you will need to set it up to
point to the correct ip address for your website by creating a DNS
entry. The ip address for your webserver is called as the A record
and the ip address for your mail server is called as the MX record,
CNAME records are used if one domain needs to be similar to another
domain, but you do not need to understand these options for a basic
setup. Many top notch domain registrars in the industry provide
advanced DNS management like forwarding your domain to another site,
subdomains, email id management, wildcard dns etc
3> third party nameservers
This is an option that very advanced domain managers prefer when
they wish to have more features and greater control over their DNS
records which may not be provided by the registrar or the webhost.
Now a days, the line between the web hosts and the domain registrars
is fading as most domain registrars are providing web hosting and
most web hosts are providing domain registration. If you purchase
your domain registration and web hosting from the same company,
chances are that you may never need to do any setup at all.
What to look for in a registrar
It is always a good idea to register your domain with a domain
registration site rather than with your webhost so you can be able
to shift your webhost in case you need to without loosing your
domain.
A good domain registrar should provide you the following features
No Cost Domain Forwarding - To Point your domain to anywhere you
choose, you can even use a long free web host url and forward your
domain to it.
No Cost for Change of Registrant - Makes sure you can change
registrars (transfer out to another registrar) for your domain
without paying a heavy fee.
No Cost Domain Parking - You get one page saying your site is under
construction or something like that
Domain Name Locking - makes sure that no one can initiate a transfer
request until you unlock your domain
DNS Server Changes - You should be able to login to your own control
panel and make any changes yourself
I use http://value-name.com for all my domain needs, they provide 1
year registration for $8.75 and $7.75 for a domain transfer
including one year extension. They also have special prizing for
bulk registrations.
Trouble Shooting Domain Name Problems
What can you do if you have trouble setting up your domain? First of
all, remember that it may take up to 48 hours for your domain
changes to propagate across the internet. If you wish to verify the
settings on any domain, you can use our recommended whois tool from
http://biz-whiz.com/PostWrap-page-nstool.html
The whois report on any domain will tell you about the current
nameservers attached to that domain in addition to the contact
addresses, the registration date, expiry date and the date when the
last modifications were made to that domain record. If the
nameservers are not correct then you know you have to change them by
logging into your domain name control panel or by contacting your
registrar support. If the name servers that are shown are correct,
then you can use the nslookup tool (Advanced DNS Lookup) from
http://biz-whiz.com/PostWrap-page-nstool.html to determine the ip
address being returned for your domain by any nameserver. Here you
should enter one of the nameserver that you find in the whois output
and see what ip address it returns for your domain name.
If it does not return an ip address then the nameserver has to be
configured to point your domain to the correct ip address, or you
may be using the wrong nameserver.
If it returns an ip address, You can try typing the ip address
directly into the address bar of your web browser, if it gives a 404
page not found error, then either the ip address is wrong or the
webserver is down. If it returns some generic page but not your
webpage, that is all right, this is to be expected unless you are
using a dedicated ip address. Make sure that the IP address returned
is the correct one that your web host is providing to you. If you
are sure that the ip address is correct and still your website does
not show when you type in your domain name in the address bar of
your browser, then it may be that other people are able to access
your site and only you are not able to access it because your local
nameserver does not resolve your domain or resolves it wrongly. In
that case, if you can find out the nameserver your local machine is
using, you can enter that nameserver in the nslookup tool at and see
what ip address it is returning. If your local nameserver is
returning the wrong ip address all you need to do is wait till the
dns changes propagate to your local nameserver, If your local
nameserver is returning the right ip address, then you must contact
your web host to inform them that their webserver is not configured
to handle your domain.
Conclusion
We have covered a lot of ground here, from registering a domain to
setting, configuring and trouble shooting it. Even if you never need
to configure a domain, understanding the concepts behind what goes
on behind the scenes when you type a domain name in your browser
should make you feel good about yourself. And if you are one of
those people who eat domains for breakfast, this article should give
you a head start into the advanced configuration options available
and with a little practice, you will be well on your way to become a
Jedi Knight of domain management. May the force be with you, always.
By Mufad.
Join The Work at Home Community
http://biz-whiz.com
This Article may be reproduced as long as no change is made to its
content, links & signature.
You may obtain the HTML formatted version of this article from
http://biz-whiz.com/article219.html
This article shows how to setup your domain and explains DNS,
Nameservers, IP Address, Forwarding, domain registration and trouble
shooting.
Introduction and scope
Almost Everyone who knows about the internet knows what a domain
name is. It is what identifies a unique website or email server.
When you send an email to someone@..., the domain.com forms
the domain name. When you type in http://domain.com in the address
bar of your browser, the domain.com is the domain name of the
website you are going to see.
But how does the computer know which page to show when there are
almost infinite number of domain names possible ? How does it know
where to fetch the webpage from ? This article answers these
question and explains what you need to do to register and setup your
domain and tell all the computers in the world that yourdomain.com
should show your web page.
How to choose a domain name ?
There are many top level domains (TLDs) the most popular are
the .com, .net and .org � Countries have their own
like .us, .in, .ca, .au etc and then there is the new breed of
domains like .tv, .info, .ws and so on but the most powerful king of
all is the .com Why ? Because it came first ? In the domain market,
single word domains sell for thousands of dollars and .com costs
around 10 times more than the others and is as difficult to get a
new name. There is a myth that domains with hypnens (dashes) are
better for search engine rankings, I think there may be some truth
in that myth, but domains without dashes always seem to cost more
than the ones with dashes. The best way to register a domain is to
determine the keywords you are going to target by using the free
trial of keyword popularity and competition analysis from
http://wordtracker.com and get a domain with those keywords in it.
Another school of thought abandons this approach and advocates brand
name domains like yahoo.com instead of everything-portal.com
google.com instead of the-only-search-engine.com and ebay.com
instead of online-junk-acutions.com - you get the picture.
Name Servers Explained
Every computer connected to the internet has an ip address that
looks like 123.234.123.234
An ip address consists of 4 numbers separated by dots, each number
ranging from 1 to 255. What this numbers mean is not important for
us, all we need to understand is that each computer on the internet
has a unique ip address and if the GoldenRobot wants to talk to R2D2
on the internet, it has to know the IP address of R2D2 (name
borrowed from the movie Star Wars).
But Wait a minute, does that mean that there are only
256*256*256*256 number of computers that can connect to the
internet, technically yes. But that number is large enough for now
until they start connecting ever microwave and freezer to the
internet (imagine your freezer automatically placing an order for 2
liters of milk to the grocery store when it detects that your milk
stock is diminishing!)
OK, now you must be thinking all the ip address stuff is fine, but
how does it relate to domain names ? Remember that I said "if the
GoldenRobot wants to talk to R2D2, it has to know the IP address of
R2D2 " - but all you give to your computer is the Domain Name of the
website you want to visit, so how can it get the ip address ? Enter
the NameServer.
The job of a nameserver is to resolve a domain name to an ip
address. Simple.
A nameserver is similar to a telephone directory except that instead
of mapping person names to phone numbers, it maps domain names to ip
addresses.
Imagine having just one telephone directory for all the people in
the world ! In the same way, if they had just one nameserver for all
domains, it would be unmanageably huge and all the computers would
have to contact that one nameserver to get the domains resolved to
ip addresses ! Even a super-duper-mega-monster-computer would not be
able to handle such a load !
So we have many nameservers. When you register a domain, you specify
which name server to use.
Now lets take our example
GoldenRobot wants to talk to R2D2
It will have to follow these steps
1> Look at the registrar entry for R2D2 to determine which
nameserver to use
2> Connect to that nameserver and ask it for the ip address of R2D2
3> Connect to R2D2 using this IP address
In reality it is a bit more complicated due nameserver cacheing, and
chained recursive lookups leading to authoritative and non
authoritative responses but our example illustrates the basic
concept and is sufficient knowledge to setup your domain.
One misconception that I would like to clarify, some people think
that each domain name maps to a unique ip address, not true. Just as
many people in a house can share a single telephone number, many
domain names can share a single ip address. The NameServer will
return the same ip address for all of these domains and when the
browser connects to that ip address, it says I am trying to reach
suchandsuch.com domain, the webserver then returns the correct page
for the domain requested. Obtaining a unique ip address (known as
dedicated ip) for your website is usually more expensive than
sharing the ip address.
How to setup your domain name
Form the discussion we just had, you would be able to appreciate
that in order for you to get your domain to point to your webpage,
you need to do the following in theory
1> Obtain the ip address for the web host where your WebPages
reside - this is the webserver ip
2> Make an entry (Called as DNS Entry) in a Nameserver to resolve
your domain name to this ip address.
3> Configure your domain to use this nameserver
Most of the time, step 2 will be transparent to you as most
webservers provide nameservers in which they make the DNS entry for
you when you purchase webspace from them. Also, many good domain
registrars provide their own nameservers that you can use.
While registering a domain or after registering a domain, you will
need to set it up to use two or more nameservers. It is common to
use multiple nameservers so that if one of them is down the others
may be used. You have three options to set the nameservers
1> nameserver provided by your web host
Your webhost will usually have their own nameservers. In their
documentation they may say you need to use something like
ns1.yourwebhost.com and ns2.yourwebhost.com - If you use these, you
need not bother about the webserver ip address or any other
settings, just configure your domain to use these and you are all
set.
2> nameserver provided by the registrar that you register your
domain with
If you use this option, you will need to know the ip address of your
webserver (provided by your webhost). As you will be using the
nameserver provided by your registrar, you will need to set it up to
point to the correct ip address for your website by creating a DNS
entry. The ip address for your webserver is called as the A record
and the ip address for your mail server is called as the MX record,
CNAME records are used if one domain needs to be similar to another
domain, but you do not need to understand these options for a basic
setup. Many top notch domain registrars in the industry provide
advanced DNS management like forwarding your domain to another site,
subdomains, email id management, wildcard dns etc
3> third party nameservers
This is an option that very advanced domain managers prefer when
they wish to have more features and greater control over their DNS
records which may not be provided by the registrar or the webhost.
Now a days, the line between the web hosts and the domain registrars
is fading as most domain registrars are providing web hosting and
most web hosts are providing domain registration. If you purchase
your domain registration and web hosting from the same company,
chances are that you may never need to do any setup at all.
What to look for in a registrar
It is always a good idea to register your domain with a domain
registration site rather than with your webhost so you can be able
to shift your webhost in case you need to without loosing your
domain.
A good domain registrar should provide you the following features
No Cost Domain Forwarding - To Point your domain to anywhere you
choose, you can even use a long free web host url and forward your
domain to it.
No Cost for Change of Registrant - Makes sure you can change
registrars (transfer out to another registrar) for your domain
without paying a heavy fee.
No Cost Domain Parking - You get one page saying your site is under
construction or something like that
Domain Name Locking - makes sure that no one can initiate a transfer
request until you unlock your domain
DNS Server Changes - You should be able to login to your own control
panel and make any changes yourself
I use http://value-name.com for all my domain needs, they provide 1
year registration for $8.75 and $7.75 for a domain transfer
including one year extension. They also have special prizing for
bulk registrations.
Trouble Shooting Domain Name Problems
What can you do if you have trouble setting up your domain? First of
all, remember that it may take up to 48 hours for your domain
changes to propagate across the internet. If you wish to verify the
settings on any domain, you can use our recommended whois tool from
http://biz-whiz.com/PostWrap-page-nstool.html
The whois report on any domain will tell you about the current
nameservers attached to that domain in addition to the contact
addresses, the registration date, expiry date and the date when the
last modifications were made to that domain record. If the
nameservers are not correct then you know you have to change them by
logging into your domain name control panel or by contacting your
registrar support. If the name servers that are shown are correct,
then you can use the nslookup tool (Advanced DNS Lookup) from
http://biz-whiz.com/PostWrap-page-nstool.html to determine the ip
address being returned for your domain by any nameserver. Here you
should enter one of the nameserver that you find in the whois output
and see what ip address it returns for your domain name.
If it does not return an ip address then the nameserver has to be
configured to point your domain to the correct ip address, or you
may be using the wrong nameserver.
If it returns an ip address, You can try typing the ip address
directly into the address bar of your web browser, if it gives a 404
page not found error, then either the ip address is wrong or the
webserver is down. If it returns some generic page but not your
webpage, that is all right, this is to be expected unless you are
using a dedicated ip address. Make sure that the IP address returned
is the correct one that your web host is providing to you. If you
are sure that the ip address is correct and still your website does
not show when you type in your domain name in the address bar of
your browser, then it may be that other people are able to access
your site and only you are not able to access it because your local
nameserver does not resolve your domain or resolves it wrongly. In
that case, if you can find out the nameserver your local machine is
using, you can enter that nameserver in the nslookup tool at and see
what ip address it is returning. If your local nameserver is
returning the wrong ip address all you need to do is wait till the
dns changes propagate to your local nameserver, If your local
nameserver is returning the right ip address, then you must contact
your web host to inform them that their webserver is not configured
to handle your domain.
Conclusion
We have covered a lot of ground here, from registering a domain to
setting, configuring and trouble shooting it. Even if you never need
to configure a domain, understanding the concepts behind what goes
on behind the scenes when you type a domain name in your browser
should make you feel good about yourself. And if you are one of
those people who eat domains for breakfast, this article should give
you a head start into the advanced configuration options available
and with a little practice, you will be well on your way to become a
Jedi Knight of domain management. May the force be with you, always.
By Mufad.
Join The Work at Home Community
http://biz-whiz.com
This Article may be reproduced as long as no change is made to its
content, links & signature.
You may obtain the HTML formatted version of this article from
http://biz-whiz.com/article219.html
This article is free for republishing
Source: http://www.articlealley.com
Source: http://www.articlealley.com
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