Your website, your domain and the link between them

Most of the IT professionals are expert in web related technologies using which they can easily create cool web applications. But web hosting, domain name, linking their domain with the website are some of the questions which stop them from creating their own websites. This is because most of us work in IT companies where we do not worry about these details at all.

Plan your website and infrastructure  :

I am sure you people are good enough in planning for your website and technology to be used.

You can create website using your own infrastructure and deploy it to the server provided by any web hosting company.

Or 

Use infrastructure of any renowned company which will help you in deployment too.

e.g I used a service provided by google called Google App engine. And finally the site was deployed too with app engine's help.

Purchasing domain name:

There are many websites which provide domain name service. Price varies from what Top level domain you go for(.edu, .com, .org etc). After doing some research online and talking to people i opted for godaddy.com. Google also provides  the domain registration but indirectly it also uses these websites for registration. Registering directly will help you in getting easily renewal next year. Remember you need to have credit card for domain name registration

Link website to your domain name:

Before going ahead, i advise you to go through the following link : Basic DNS setting terms to understand some basic terms like 'A name record', 'CNAME record', 'NS record', 'MX record' e.t.c.

i)Verify that domain name belongs to you:

Before linking, app server will ask you to verify that you are the proud owner of your domain name.

For my website, I followed the instructions given below as it was using google's app engine service: Sign up to google apps with your domain name here. While google will recommend  : to create a html page and copy it to your domain name. The alternative method is easier. 

It will give you a TXT code which has to be entered in TXT section of  DNS manager (To open DNS manager : Login to goDaddy-> My Accounts-> Select the domain-> DNS manager-> Launch)

Google app will provide easy step by step instruction on how to add TXT.

ii) Set the CNAME record in DNS manager:

Open DNS manager (To open DNS manager : Login to goDaddy-> My Accounts-> Select the domain-> DNS manager-> Launch). Set the CNAME for host: www to point to: ghs.google.com. (this is for google app engine it may vary for others)

iii)Domain setting in google apps:

Sign in to google apps with your app then go to Settings.  In the left panel Services select your app engine name. Then you can add your domain using 'Add new links'.

iii) Forwarding naked domain to your domain :

As of you now your naked domain e.g yoursite.com will not work. You will only be able to open www.yoursite.com. To automatically forward it to your domain do the following setting. 

Login to godaddy.com (other site may have different option). 

Select My Accounts->Domain information ->Forwarding->Manage. Then enter www.yoursite.com in Forwarding  and click OK.

iv) Enabling email for your website: @yoursite.com (Optional)

Sign in to google app. You will see active link near Email option. Click on it and then follow the following instruction to do the MX record setting for email server: Activate Email Instruction

Adding your website to google search:


While google will automatically crawl your web pages. You can use Google Webmaster tool to :
Add your website for google search.
Manage you data for crawling, indexing, search e.t.c.
Analyze search data.
See web pages which contain links to your pages.

Thanks people. All the best for your website