How to Setup a Domain with DNS, IP Address and Web Host

This article shows how to setup your domain and explains DNS, Nameservers, IP Address, Forwarding, domain registration and trouble shooting. Introduction and scope Almost Everyone who knows about the internet knows what a domain name is. It is what identifies a unique website or email server. When you send an email to someone@domain.com, the domain.com forms the domain name. When you type in http://domain.com in the address bar of your browser, the domain.com is the domain name of the website you are going to see. But how does the computer know which page to show when there are almost infinite number of domain names possible ? How does it know where to fetch the webpage from ? This article answers these question and explains what you need to do to register and setup your domain and tell all the computers in the world that yourdomain.com should show your web page. How to choose a domain name ? There are many top level domains (TLDs) the most popular are the .com, .net and .org - Countries have their own like .us, .in, .ca, .au etc and then there is the new breed of domains like .tv, .info, .ws and so on but the most powerful king of all is the .com Why ? Because it came first ? In the domain market, single word domains sell for thousands of dollars and .com costs around 10 times more than the others and is as difficult to get a new name. There is a myth that domains with hypnens (dashes) are better for search engine rankings, I think there may be some truth in that myth, but domains without dashes always seem to cost more than the ones with dashes. The best way to register a domain is to determine the keywords you are going to target by using the free trial of keyword popularity and competition analysis from How to setup your domain name Form the discussion we just had, you would be able to appreciate that in order for you to get your domain to point to your webpage, you need to do the following in theory 1> Obtain the ip address for the web host where your WebPages reside - this is the webserver ip 2> Make an entry (Called as DNS Entry) in a Nameserver to resolve your domain name to this ip address. 3> Configure your domain to use this nameserver Most of the time, step 2 will be transparent to you as most webservers provide nameservers in which they make the DNS entry for you when you purchase webspace from them. Also, many good domain registrars provide their own nameservers that you can use. While registering a domain or after registering a domain, you will need to set it up to use two or more nameservers. It is common to use multiple nameservers so that if one of them is down the others may be used. You have three options to set the nameservers

1> nameserver provided by your web host

Your webhost will usually have their own nameservers. In their documentation they may say you need to use something like ns1.yourwebhost.com and ns2.yourwebhost.com - If you use these, you need not bother about the webserver ip address or any other settings, just configure your domain to use these and you are all set.

2> nameserver provided by the registrar that you register your domain with

If you use this option, you will need to know the ip address of your webserver (provided by your webhost). As you will be using the nameserver provided by your registrar, you will need to set it up to point to the correct ip address for your website by creating a DNS entry. The ip address for your webserver is called as the A record and the ip address for your mail server is called as the MX record, CNAME records are used if one domain needs to be similar to another domain, but you do not need to understand these options for a basic setup. Many top notch domain registrars in the industry provide advanced DNS management like forwarding your domain to another site, subdomains, email id management, wildcard dns etc

3> third party nameservers

This is an option that very advanced domain managers prefer when they wish to have more features and greater control over their DNS records which may not be provided by the registrar or the webhost. Now a days, the line between the web hosts and the domain registrars is fading as most domain registrars are providing web hosting and most web hosts are providing domain registration. If you purchase your domain registration and web hosting from the same company, chances are that you may never need to do any setup at all. What to look for in a registrar It is always a good idea to register your domain with a domain registration site rather than with your webhost so you can be able to shift your webhost in case you need to without loosing your domain. A good domain registrar should provide you the following features

No Cost Domain Forwarding - To Point your domain to anywhere you choose, you can even use a long free web host url and forward your domain to it.

No Cost for Change of Registrant - Makes sure you can change registrars (transfer out to another registrar) for your domain without paying a heavy fee.