What is the difference between a domain name & website hosting by reallysimpleseo.com

This whole area is really quite confusing, so here’s a beginners guide

It is quite easy to buy a domain name these days. Just visit a domain registrar such as 123reg.co.uk and start looking for the name of your choice.
What is it and what do you do with it?

Once you’ve chosen you can simply buy the domain and it’s yours. But what do you do with it then? And what have you bought anyway?
The Domain Name System (DNS)

Domain name are define by the protocol called The Domain Name System (DNS). This makes it possible to assign domain names to groups of internet users in a meaningful way.

DNS will turn easy names you can remember into IP addresses which are simply numbers, that can be understood, by any internet connected server (computer).
Easy to understand

So www.reallysimpleseo.com that you can understand, will become 67.210.109.225 that an internet computer can understand and so display the web page you’d expect.
Hosted on an Internet server

But wait a minute, how does it display the web pages? For a website or web pages to appear when you enter a domain name in a browser they need to be hosted on an Internet server.
Domain name pointed to an Internet server

An Internet server is simply a computer that is connected up to the internet, and the domain name is pointed (using DNS), to that computer. So that is why it appears when you type it into a web browser to click on a link.

When you buy your domain name you don’t automatically buy the hosting. But you can usually buy them from the same company if you wish.

The original article is here http://www.reallysimpleseo.com/domain-names/domain-hosting-questions

Thank you to David Howlett of reallysimpleseo.com for allowing us to reproduce this article.