January 4, 2011 by Kevin

With all the terms out there, talking about the Internet can be confusing. In this post, I'll try to make things a bit more clear. A domain is a registered name and a website is all the site content including the files (which need to be stored somewhere). Let's use the car analogy.

Your domain name is like your license plate. It identifies your site and makes it able to be found on the world wide web. Of course, just like a license plate, a domain name needs to be registered before you can use it.

A domain registrar is who you register your domain with similarly how you must register your license plate with the DMV.

Once you have registered your domain, you need a place to park it - like an assigned spot in a garage. A web host is where you do that.

Now that you have registered your domain, and have a place to host it, you need to set up your website - your "car" - for all the world to see.

So in short, your domain is just the name you give to your website, the first part of your URL; and the actual website is all the content and files.

Posted in Help Me Understand