Using Your Domain Name

A web site is a collection of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) documents which get displayed by a web hosting server.

Web Hosting is a service required for a domain to have an associated website. This is a business solution which companies provide to other businesses or individuals. The hosting company has a computer called a web server. This server holds the client's HTML pages, as well as any other files necessary for the site, and displays them when a user requests the clients domain via a web browser (assuming the user has permission to view these pages). This service allows for a client's company to be displayed over the Internet, freeing the client from the high expense and time invested in setting up, running, and maintaining a web server themselves. The most common location for a website will be at www.yourcompany.com.

Web Hosting is not included with Domain Name registration. To sign up for web hosting, or to learn more about this service, please visit our Web Hosting page.

DNS (Domain Name Services) is a service, running on a server, that takes a domain name request and looks up the IP address of the computer associated with that domain name. You register your domain name with a Registrar, and the Registrar points others to your DNS server, which in turn points people to your domain name. This means that your Registrar can be different from your DNS provider. LocalNetHosting.com provides both Domain Name registration and DNS.

LocalNetHosting.com provides free DNS parking as part of your Domain Name Registration. You may change your DNS settings from the Domain Manager once you have registered.

An IP Address is a 32-bit number (ex. 192.168.0.0) which defines the location of a computer on a network. Certain IP Address ranges are reserved by companies. The companies then use, or sell, the addresses in order to allow computers to be accessable over a network. The range of numbers between the periods (.) is 0 to 255 (0 is not 000, and so on). This allows for a large amount of combinations which can be used on a large number of computers. DNS takes names (recognizable by people) and turns them into IP Addresses (recognizable by computers) , and vice versa. Example: yourname.com is located on a computer with the IP Address of 210.5.274.16 (DNS knows this because the relationship is established in a table, like a spreadsheet).

"Pointing" your domain name to the IP Address of a computer is done through the Domain Manager tools. The IP Address you should enter will be provided to you by your web hosting company.

An MX Record lets the DNS server of the domain name know where your company's mail server is hosted. Usually your hosting company will set this up. The domain host keeps and sets these records. You should only modify this record if your mail is handled by someone other than LocalNetHosting.com or LocalNet Corp.