Building A Website With A New Domain Name

A lovely friend of mine asked me some questions on how to set up a website, with a given purchased domain name and an available webspace. For a moment, I stumbled because there are several things in which we are talking about, including various ways of building a website. However, I believe that my friend is referring to pointing the Domain Name Servers (DNS) to the web hosting server.

Let start with the basic tool of what you may need. The following are probably the stuffs you need to get:

1. A top-level domain (TLD) name, e.g. domain.com. You definitely have to pay for this, and generally, you can renew it every year. Some domain registrars allow you to renew a domain name for 10 years or more in a single transaction.
2. A web hosting service - It simply means you need a web-hosting server (or a webspace) to host your site. There are several web hosting services available in the Internet, ranging from free ones, e.g. Hostmatrix.org to paid services, e.g. BlueHost.

In this tutorial, I will assume (in most circumstances) that you have already purchased your domain name and a web hosting service. Otherwise, I will still briefly cover them here.

(building your new website...)

Get Your Own Domain
Why is it good to have your own domain? There are several reasons:

• uniqueness - a top-level domain is unique from sub-domains because no one else will have the same domain as you.
• SEO (search engine optimization) - in search engine optimization's point of view, a top-level domain gets indexed much easily and quicker than a sub-domain address. Also, the domain name carries a certain weightage in indexing.
• satisfaction - nothing beats being happy to own an asset. If you cannot afford a car or a house, maybe this will make you happier.

And what are the cons of buying a TLD? Well, here are two main disadvantages:

• Not free - though the domain name will belong to you. In reality, it works like a lease. You are the owner of the domain.... only for a period of time. After which, you will have to renew the domain name, in order to keep it for another year or so. Hence, it is not free, and it won't be free.
• Troublesome - this is about the same as above; renewal is troublesome and once you forget to renew it, the domain name goes open to public and someone else will take the opportunity to buy it. (Why would anyone buy it? Simple, because you have spent one year building up links to your site, the new owner can gain the benefit from what you have established). So, the bottom line is, never forget to renew your domain name. Once lost, it is gone and it will be very expensive to buy back.

I have used two domain registrars and they are very reputable. I would highly recommend them to you.

1. NameCheap
2. GoDaddy

I started off initially with NameCheap, because of its great deal for new domain name registration. The privacy protection comes as a free package for one year. However, I decided to transfer all of my domain names to GoDaddy, because I find that the privacy protection is no longer that cheap if I have more than one domain names. GoDaddy gives free privacy protection for users having 5 or more domain names in an account. So, this is quite a good bargain.

Why privacy protection?
It may be a small price to pay, but it has huge benefits. Users over the Internet can check the ownership of the domain using WHOIS service. All kinds of information, e.g. your real name, address, email, telephone number, etc..., can be traced with this service. You definitely won't want others to know where you stay or what your email and personal contact number is. For example, if you try WHOIS with Neohide.com, valuable information will be limited, e.g.

Registrant:
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: NEOHIDE.COM
Created on: 27-Sep-06
Expires on: 27-Sep-08
Last Updated on: 10-Aug-07

Administrative Contact:
Private, Registration NEOHIDE.COM@domainsbyproxy.com
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
(480) 624-2599 Fax -- (480) 624-2599

Technical Contact:
Private, Registration NEOHIDE.COM@domainsbyproxy.com
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
(480) 624-2599 Fax -- (480) 624-2599

Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.BLUEHOST.COM
NS2.BLUEHOST.COM

In cases where information is not protected, you can find out vital information of the person including the owner's name, e.g. BitterStickGirl.com,

Registrant:
Bitter StickGal
80 Raffles Places #35-01 UOB Plaza 1
Sg, 048324
Singapore

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: BITTERSTICKGIRL.COM
Created on: 30-Jul-07
Expires on: 30-Jul-08
Last Updated on: 30-Jul-07

Administrative Contact:
StickGal, Bitter davidgwee@gmail.com
80 Raffles Places #35-01 UOB Plaza 1
Sg, 048324
Singapore
81394988 Fax --

Technical Contact:
StickGal, Bitter davidgwee@gmail.com
80 Raffles Places #35-01 UOB Plaza 1
Sg, 048324
Singapore
81394988 Fax --

Domain servers in listed order:
NS51.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
NS52.DOMAINCONTROL.COM

The owner's name, address and contact number can be easily traced as seen above.

Setting Up DNS
Once you have purchased your domain name, the next thing to do is to configure it to point to the web hosting server. You will be presented with a control panel (or login panel) that allows you to configure your domain name servers. I shall use NameCheap control panel here as an example, though it should work the same way with your own registrar control panel.

1. Login to the domain registrar (for mine, it will be NameCheap)
   
2. Click on Manage Domain to configure your domain name.
   
3. Then, click on Domain Name Server Setup. Your registrar might differ slightly, but it should all mean the same thing, as long as it specify "Domain Name Server".
   
4. This is the most important step - change the nameserver to point to your web hosting DNS server. If you do not know what is your web hosting company's DNS, check out with your web hosting company. Without this information, the domain name cannot be used to access your web content.
   
5. Save the information after you have configured the DNS. The next thing is to wait up to 24 hours (some up to 48 hours) for the DNS to update itself. There is always a delay in updating DNS, so the next time when you enter the domain name on your web browser, it should point to the correct server, and hence your website.

Once you have accomplished the required steps above, you are done with the DNS setup. The next thing is to configure your web hosting service to use the domain name.

Configuring the Web Hosting Server
Different web hosting companies uses different hosting applications; the most popular one being cPanel. Other less popular ones include LayeredPanel and ZPanel. It does not really matter which of these application scripts that the web hosting company uses as long as they allow you to add a domain name to it (known as add-on domain). In the tutorial here, I will use cPanel as an example.

When a webspace is purchased from a web-hosting company, they have to supply you the following information:

1. Hosting server IP (Internet Protocol) address - e.g. 123.252.189.223
2. Login user name and password
3. Login procedure to control panel - e.g. use web browser and point to http://123.252.189.223:2082 (the method of logging in will be different if you are not using cPanel)

Once you have these information, then will you be able to configure your web-hosting server. Without them, you can't do anything. So, check with your hosting company if they did not send you these information.

Below is the procedure to setup the domain name (add-on domain) to be used on the web server.

1. Make sure you have done the above step on Setting up DNS before proceeding.
2. Login to cPanel (or your server designated control panel). You will be presented with a list of options, then click on AddOn Domains icon.
   
3. Include the information to add a domain to the web server, for example if you want to add neohide.com, then insert the information as shown below.
   
4. Save the information, and the site will be accessible shortly.

Once you have done the above steps successfully, congratulations! You have completed the difficult task of setting up the DNS and the web server.

Troubleshooting
What might have gone wrong? Before speculating anything, make sure you have waited up to 24 hours for the DNS to propagate. Some gets updated faster than others.

First of all, check if the DNS has successfully pointed to the web server. You can check using the following two methods:

1. pinging - type "ping neohide.com" (change neohide.com to your own domain name) in your command prompt (Windows) or text console (Linux) to check if you get any response from the web server. If there is no response, or the response of the address is wrong, then you have to re-check your DNS configuration.
2. WHOIS - check WHOIS if the domain name gets updated with the correct Domain Name Server. If the DNS is not correct, it means your DNS is mis-configured or not yet updated. (Linux users can check WHOIS using "whois neohide.com" from the text console)

If all goes well with the DNS configuration, then it could be the web server that has been mis-configured. Re-check the above-mentioned steps (on configuring the web server) to see if you have done it correctly. Otherwise, the only way is to contact the web hosting company.

Don't be afraid to call them; you have paid for their service, they should give you the necessary support. Remember, you are the paying party.