How do web domains work?

[Andrew1990]

I am thinking of making a small website just to host my photos I take. I would like to get a domain name for it but am unsure as to how they work.

Godaddy.com as well as some others register them to you but does that mean I own those domains? Then I looked on ebay and people are selling domain names, does that mean no yearly cost?

 

[FleshLight]

You either register one or purchase an already registered one and then pay a name service for the name server hosting.

 

[TechAZ]

Originally posted by: Andrew1990
I am thinking of making a small website just to host my photos I take. I would like to get a domain name for it but am unsure as to how they work.

Godaddy.com as well as some others register them to you but does that mean I own those domains? Then I looked on ebay and people are selling domain names, does that mean no yearly cost?

A domain is just a readable address that points to your web hosting/content. You "own" them as long as you pay for them. You can pay for them a year at a time or up to 5 or 10 years at once.

The people that are selling them on Ebay and other auction sites are selling domains for higher than they purchased them and are usually decent names that they're holding on for to make some money. Once you buy the name from an auction site (assuming it's not a scam) the seller will either edit the domain information to reflect your information or just give you the password so you can change all the information and password to your own. The seller will tell you how long it's registered for once you buy it and you will have to take over payments once expired. You can look up how long a domain is registered for through a whois search.

 

[nanette1985]

Originally posted by: Andrew1990
I am thinking of making a small website just to host my photos I take. I would like to get a domain name for it but am unsure as to how they work.

Godaddy.com as well as some others register them to you but does that mean I own those domains? Then I looked on ebay and people are selling domain names, does that mean no yearly cost?

First, you get a domain name and you get a web host. But, just having a web host doesn't mean you can host your photos on it - you need to find some kind of utility that allows you to do that, and put it on your site. It might be easy, might not - I've never done it.

Second, yes, you get a domain name from godaddy or many other places, you own it for as long as you pay for it.

When you buy a domain name on ebay, you own it until the original registration expires, and you can pay for another year or three or however long you want to own it.

When you buy that domain name on ebay, it is important to find out when it expires BEFORE you buy it. I often sell names on ebay for 99 cents that will be expiring soon, because I don't feel like paying for them another year. I use a lot of domain names for testing purposes.

 

[Alone]

You're renting them.

 

[bobdole369]

TO put it quite simply - what you pay for - is a year long ability to change the information at the registry for xxxxx.com . You input your name servers, configure your name servers so that the website resolves correctly. You also need to now build a website at that IP address. So you need Apache or IIS as the most common webservers. Now you'll need to build a web page.

ALL of this is done for you - for a low monthly cost at somewhere like justhost.com or singlehop. In fact a lot of places will already have gallery, or some other image specific software installed on your virtualhost.

 

[funkymatt]

what would happen if you were working at a company and noticed their domain was about to expire, then you purchased it in the hopes of selling it back to the company?

 

[FleshLight]

Originally posted by: funkymatt
what would happen if you were working at a company and noticed their domain was about to expire, then you purchased it in the hopes of selling it back to the company?

You would get fired and they would still get the domain.

 

[Gooberlx2]

Originally posted by: bobdole369
TO put it quite simply - what you pay for - is a year long ability to change the information at the registry for xxxxx.com . You input your name servers, configure your name servers so that the website resolves correctly. You also need to now build a website at that IP address. So you need Apache or IIS as the most common webservers. Now you'll need to build a web page.

ALL of this is done for you - for a low monthly cost at somewhere like justhost.com or singlehop. In fact a lot of places will already have gallery, or some other image specific software installed on your virtualhost.

Personally, I just point my host records to something like blogger or live spaces, picasaweb or live gallery and google apps (for email).

mail.xxxxx.com --> gmail
photos.xxxxx.com --> live/skydrive photo gallery (25GB free)
www.xxxxx.com --> blogger

No need for the extra costs of a hosting service and I get all the features I need. Now if I really needed to design my own webpage with additional features (like a shopping cart for a business or something), then I'd certainly use a hosting service.