Complete Guide Domain Registration and Web Hosting in Kenya
This article will guide you step by step on how you can register your domain name and set up web hosting for your business in Kenya. Domain Registration and Web Hosting are two related terms and it’s really hard to separate the two since they depend on each other.
In this guide, you are going to learn the following topics
- What is a domain name
- Importance of having a domain name
- What is web hosting
- Process of registering a domain name
- What is Name Server
What is a Domain Name
A domain name is an online unique address or identifier for your website that is a combination of a domain name (The name of your company) and a domain extension like .com, .co.ke, .org e.t.c.
A domain name must be unique and it can be a combination of letters and numbers. Two domain names can have different domain extensions and therefore the two domains become unique.
Importance of having a domain name
A domain name gives your business credibility and helps you to build your brand, It’s is a big marketing tool since it gives your business an online presence and you can connect with customers and clients worldwide.
A good domain name brings traffic to your website
What is web hosting
Web hosting is the technology of renting or purchasing an online hosting space from a web hosting company for storing and publishing your website to the internet.
Process of registering a domain name
The process of registering a domain name is very easy and non-technical. Anyone should be able to go through the process without any challenge
- Choose a domain name extension that is suitable for your business
- Come up with an easy to remember domain name
- Check on WHOIS whether the domain name is available for registration
- Once you confirm that the domain name is available for registration, Identify a web hosting company
- Choose a hosting plan that for your business need
- Once you are satisfied with the hosting plan and you have settled with a company to register your domain with, Proceed and purchase the domain together with the hosting.
In normal cases, a domain name takes up to 24 hours for propagation to take place.
Domain name propagation or DNS propagation is a process of updating all the servers across the world of an existence of a new domain name and different server propagate at a different time and therefore a minimum of 24 hours is required for a domain name to propagate across all the servers.
What is Name Server
A name server is a combination of IP addresses that are being used to connect a domain name the correct server where it’s required to query the website files of website information.
Remember at the beginning we said that it’s not possible to separate Domain Registration and Web Hosting since they all depend on each other.
Once you buy a domain name it needs to be pointed to a name server. The name servers are the ones that tell the domains to which server it should communicate. below is an example of a name server
Useful Links
