Domains Vs Websites

The most common question I get about websites is “What is the difference between my website and my domain name.” I like to explain this at a basic level by using a car analogy.

Any sysadmins and devops guys, please don’t crucify me.

Your website is like a car.

A website is a collection of files, code, and databases that all work together to run. It is your car. You can purchase your car from a variety of dealers, or you can build one yourself. Your car can run fine by itself but you need a few more things to put it on the road.

Your Domain Name is a License Plate

twitter.com is a domain name. When you type twitter.com into your browser your computer looks up what are called DNS records to find the website that the domain name points to.

Sometimes you can buy your car and get the license plate at the same place. or buy your car and get a license plate later, and you can already have a license plate and transfer the plate to a new car. The plate is separate from your car, and you usually have to pay to renew it every year.

DNS Records Are Your Registration

DNS records tell where to find information about your domain name, like where to find the host that stores your website.

Once again, you can handle your registration at the same time as buying your car and getting your license plate or you can do all 3 at separate places. Your registration goes into a list of other registrations that keep every license plate organized with how to find the car for each license plate.

Website Hosting is Your Assigned Parking Space

Your website hosting is your car’s assigned parking space. It is where your registration says you can always find the car, and you guessed it, it can be the same place you bought everything else, or it can all be from separate vendors.

Putting it all together

A website consists of the files and databases, a domain name, DNS records, and hosting that stores the files and databases.

Your computer looks up a domain name, uses DNS records to translate that domain name into an IP address that leads you to the hosting server that displays the files and database in a manner that you can interact with. Every single one of these parts can be at the same vendor or a different vendor. In my next essay, I will discuss best practices in regard to those vendors.

This post was created with Typeshare