2011-01-20, 04:18 AM
Domains are absolutely not required to run a website. You could run a server without a domain name. To use a real estate analogy:
Without a domain name: "Excuse me sir, I need to go to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC 20500."
With a domain name: "Excuse me sir, I need to go to the White House."
A domain name is a name and nothing more. You could get to the right place just by telling people the address (or for a website - the IP address). But having a domain name makes your website more recognizable to people.
Without a domain name: "Excuse me DNS, I need to go to 64.79.210.58"
With a domain name: 'Excuse me DNS, I need to go to southperry.net"
Both will take you to the same place.
A webhost is a place from which you buy a server from. They give you a slot on a server and an IP address. You buy a name from a DNS registrar (godaddy and namecheap are popular). Then you tell the DNS server where you want your name to point - what IP address. Then when people type in "example.com" they'll go to your site.
When people connect to your site, they will default to port 80 which is the HTTP standard. So on the webserver there has to be a program (on Linux it's often called a daemon) that listens on port 80. The program then spits out HTML pages for the client to view.
You never need to call your ISP to set up a server. Period.
Also, it's, "I'm trying to get my concepts straight."
Without a domain name: "Excuse me sir, I need to go to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC 20500."
With a domain name: "Excuse me sir, I need to go to the White House."
A domain name is a name and nothing more. You could get to the right place just by telling people the address (or for a website - the IP address). But having a domain name makes your website more recognizable to people.
Without a domain name: "Excuse me DNS, I need to go to 64.79.210.58"
With a domain name: 'Excuse me DNS, I need to go to southperry.net"
Both will take you to the same place.
A webhost is a place from which you buy a server from. They give you a slot on a server and an IP address. You buy a name from a DNS registrar (godaddy and namecheap are popular). Then you tell the DNS server where you want your name to point - what IP address. Then when people type in "example.com" they'll go to your site.
When people connect to your site, they will default to port 80 which is the HTTP standard. So on the webserver there has to be a program (on Linux it's often called a daemon) that listens on port 80. The program then spits out HTML pages for the client to view.
You never need to call your ISP to set up a server. Period.
Also, it's, "I'm trying to get my concepts straight."