About domain names and hosting

News about hosting

In the summer of 2006, it became apparent that websites aimed at Canadian customers or, for example, that refer to accommodations in Canada, should be hosted on a server that is physically located in Canada. Then if a user selects the "pages from Canada" option on the Google homepage, your site will show up in the results. If it is hosted in another country, the site will not show up. I have used two companies in Toronto for hosting: MyHosting.com and Netfirms.ca. They both have good prices and a wide range of services.

The same goes for sites in the U.K. — they should be hosted within the U.K. It's the same for other countries as well.

If you are pitching your products primarily to a US audience, then by all means use a server located in the US.

Basic explanations:

Websites are "hosted" on servers. A server is a computer that is permanently connected to the Internet. Every page has an address code (URL) that allows anyone using a browser (e.g. Netscape or Explorer) to find it. This page's URL, for example, is http://www.holmpage.com/holmpage/hosts.htm, which you can see in the bar at the top. The domain name is www.holmpage.com. The rest of the address helped the server find the right page when you clicked on the button. (The "http://" part is common to all web pages but is becoming more and more unnecessary for common use - browsers don't need you to enter it anymore, for example, when you're looking for a page.)

This website is hosted with NetFirms.ca, located in Toronto, which has reliable and inexpensive hosting and a multitude of other services.

Your own "dot-com"

It is very economical to own your own domain and have it hosted with an independent company.

It costs just a few dollars per year to register your domain name. You also have to rent space on a server to host your web site. This service is available for a few dollars per month (if you don't need secure hosting for e-commerce).

Top-level domain extensions other than dot-com are also available; the old ones, dot-net and dot-org are now available to anyone without restriction. There are new extensions such as dot-info, dot-biz, etc. available. And there are the country extensions, such as dot-ca for Canada, dot-uk for the United Kingdom, etc. For a commercial site it is still advisable to get a dot-com domain name if you want to sell across borders. A country extension (for Canada: dot-ca) is a good choice if you are mainly dealing with people from your own country.

Your personal web space from your ISP

If you are connected to the Internet via an Internet service provider (ISP) such as Bell, Sympatico or Eastlink, you probably have a few megabytes (usually 5 MB) of web space allocated to you on their server as part of your contract. Even one MB can hold a very nice website with many pages and graphics.

However, DO NOT use your personal webspace for a business web site. Why?

Having your own domain has become very affordable.
Having your own domain gives you e-mail@yourdomain. Very cool.
You can keep a domain name and the e-mail addresses that go with it even if you change ISPs or change your hosting company. It's permanent (as long as you don't let it expire from non-payment).
You have a lot more control over your website with your own domain name and hosting service.
A domain name gets respect. It shows that you're serious about doing business. It puts you in the same league as larger companies.
It's easier for people to remember.
Search engines like domain names. Keywords contained in domain names get a lot of attention.
You may cripple your ability to attract traffic via search engines. ISPs can limit the ability of search engines to index pages hosted on their free webspace. They do this to avoid excessive bandwidth expenses that could result if a site gets much traffic.
Domain hosting enables you to do a lot more things with your website: e.g. videos, blogs, forums and more. A good hosting package gives you L-O-T-S of space.