Server Space
All websites need server space. Servers are basically computers whose memory can be accessed via the internet. Like the memory on your computer, ‘server space’ is the memory required to keep and access all files associated with your website (photos, music, pages of the website etc).
Companies such as one.com will lease you memory space on their servers for an annual fee. This is called “hosting”. The files on this memory are often filed under a domain name (See below)
Domain Name (URL)
Your domain name or URL is the address required to access files in your website direct. Domain names all start with www. so the domain name for the BBC is www.bbc.co.uk It’s a bit like a contact telephone number but with words.
The domain name should be entered in the address bar at the top of a browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera etc…) Entering it in a Search Engine (Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask etc…) does NOT guarantee you’ll get to the website. More on that in the SEO section. However entering the address in the browser bar does guarantee it!
Domain names, like telephone numbers, are unique to the person they are registered to – so there is no guarantee that if your site is called Fred Bloggs that you’ll automatically get the domain www.fredbloggs.com
ActorCV recommends you buy your server space and domain in a package from www.one.com – for a basic site just get their basic package. Be sure to use an email address that you’re likely to use for the future so they can remind you to renew the package when it expires after 1 year.
FAILURE TO RENEW A DOMAIN REGISTRATION CAN LEAD YOU TO LOOSING THAT DOMAIN NAME FOREVER – SO BE SURE TO RENEW!!
(This has happened to a friend of mine. Their entire promotional literature then had to be changed as they were unable to repurchase the domain – which proved costly.)
Once you have bought the server space and domain you will be sent an email full of information. This email will need to be forwarded to ActorCV if you wish to use us to help with your website (charges will apply).
