At Tuple we like to demystify the world of IT for our clients, to help them better understand our services and what they are paying for. The following is a short run down of all the components that come together to make websites work.
There are 4 major pieces that need to operate together to make a website work.
You need:
- To design the website.
- To own a domain name.
- A service to manage Domain Name Service (DNS) records.
- A service to store and serve the website itself.
Website Design: This is all the code that your browser uses to display and run the website. It tells the browser how things are supposed to look and what is supposed to happen when buttons and links etc are pressed.
Domain Name: The phrase you tell users to enter into their address bar, e.g. tuple.com.au. They are also used for other services such as email. These are globally unique, so you would need to be lucky to get your first choice if you do not own one already. There is small ongoing fee associated with this, to cover the privilege of being able to use the name.
Domain Name Service: acts like an address book, telling the computers where on the Internet to find your website. This also attracts an ongoing cost, as a service must be configured and maintained to provide results for anyone wanting to visit your website. If you own a domain, you could easily have DNS for it also, in which case we will need to modify it for use with the website when it is ready to go live.
Website Hosting: This is the home for the content of your website and where it is made available for the public. This involves another ongoing fee for the service, which can vary depending on the volume of traffic your website attracts.