This article will explain the key differences between domain names and website hosting, as well as provide useful information such as how to purchase a domain name and assign it to a web hosting company.

How Domain Names Were Invented?

The internet is a massive network of computers connecting and exchanging information with one another. In order for computers to connect and communicate, they need to identify each other through IP Addresses.

Domain names were invented for people to easily connect to IP Addresses of computers by assigning names for the IP Addresses. This makes it simple for people to connect to computers by remembering names, rather than numbers.


How To Buy A Domain Name and The Costs Involved

Domain names are displayed in your browser URL and usually start with “www” which means world wide web. In order to purchase a domain name, you will need to find a Domain Registrar online where you will be required to complete your registration and include your credit card details or use a payment gateway.

Popular payment gateways include Payfast (South Africa) and Paypal (International). They protect your credit card details from being stolen online, but charge a small fee for any transactions that occur in your payment gateway account.

Domain names are affordable, depending on the type of domain name you purchase. Local domain names that end with .co.za can be bought for R100 per year. Domain names that end with .com can go for R250 per year or more, depending on the Domain Registrar.


Domain Names and SEO

In the older days of SEO, many people were purchasing domain names by placing the exact keyword in the domain itself. This is known as EMD (Exact Match Domains). This worked incredibly well as websites were getting ranked on Page 1 of Google for the keyword placed in the domain name without the need to SEO.

As time passed by, Google wanted websites to focus on branding and did not favor the EMD types of domains anymore. Make sure you focus on branding when purchasing a domain name, and do not consider EMD anymore as they will become render ineffective in the future.

How To Assign Domain Name To Website Hosting

When you purchase a domain name, you will have to manage where to point the Nameservers in order to host your website with your domain. Here are the instructions on how to point your domain name from your Domain Registrar to your Hosting Company.

• You will need to find the Nameservers by asking your hosting provider for the details.

• Once you have accumulated the Nameserver details, you will have to enter them into the DNS section of your domain name in your Domain Registrar.

• You will then need to assign your domain name in your hosting account to capture the domain.


History of Website Hosting?

Website hosting companies provide servers for people or businesses to host their website on. In the older days, people used to host websites on their own computer, but this could not sustain anymore as normal computers would be overloaded with the number of connections established and crash completely. This is where hosting companies came to life and introduced an easy and fast way to host your website.


How To Apply For Hosting and the Costs Involved

Website hosting is also affordable. You could pay R50 per month to host one or more websites depending on the packages offered by the hosting company. Many hosting providers offer software utilities for users to build websites, protect their websites, with anti-virus software, and even create email accounts with associated domain names.


Web Hosting and SEO

It's important to use high-quality servers when hosting your website. With regards to SEO, if your hosting company provides low-quality servers, it could negatively affect your ranking position on Google. Google has made it clear it wants websites to load quickly onto users devices, and if your hosting company is responsible for providing slow and unreliable servers, it will result in your website ranking low on Google due to slow loading times.