Overview

This document will help you understand how websites are hosted and what you need to know to keep your site up and running. ONE/Northwest will assist you in this endeavor, but there are certain aspects of your website hosting that you must be aware of and manage internally.

There are many technical terms and service providers out there that can make it hard to understand how websites are hosted. Many service providers offer more than one service so it's possible, for example, that your domain registrar and DNS hosting provider are one and the same. Always refer to your Vital Information document if you aren't sure who is providing which service to you.

What is a Domain Name?

Your domain name is simply the name of your website, such as onenw.org, or epa.gov. You pay an annual fee for the ownership of each domain name. Simply owning a domain name doesn't mean you can create a website there. You must also establish DNS hosting and web hosting.  Domain names are purchased from a service provider known as a domain registrar.  Registering a domain typically costs about $10/year.  When you register your domain, you also get all the sub-domains associated it with it, for free.  Sub-domains are variations on the original domain name; for instance, in our case "www.onenw.org", or "lists.onenw.org". (Note that sub-domains may point to entirely different websites, but they don't have to: "onenw.org" and "www.onenw.org" point to the same site, whereas "lists.onenw.org" does not.)

What is a Domain Registrar?

A domain registrar is the service provider through which you purchase ownership of a domain name. ONE/Northwest owns the domain onenw.org because we have registered it with GKG.net, a domain registrar.  You can typically purchase domain names for periods of time ranging from one to ten years.

If you fail to renew your domain name registrations when they expire, you will no longer own the domain name and it may be released to the general public. Therefore, you will need to periodically renew your domain name registration with your domain registrar.  ONE/Northwest generally recommends that you purchase domain names for at least 3-5 years to avoid the risk of service interruptions.

It is vital that the contact information you use when setting up your login account with your domain registrar be evergreen. There are up to four contacts per account: Billing contact, technical contact, admin, and registrant. It is OK to use the same info for all four if you wish, but do not use a personal email address (jondoe@org.org).

Use a general contact mailbox (e.g. "info@yourdomain.org") that will always be checked and  is unlikely to change over time. This is very important because it can be extremely difficult and time-consuming to retrieve lost login information if the email address on record becomes inactive (e.g. due to staff turnover). Losing your login information for your domain registrar may result in serious delays and additional cost in launching your website.

What about Email Hosting?

Email hosting is a separate service from all of the website-related services and providers.

High quality email hosting is inexpensive, and even free.  Our first choice for email hosting these days is Google's "Google Apps for Nonprofits" service.   Our friends at Electric Embers also offer inexpensive nonprofit-friendly email hosting.

Once you have established an account with an email hosting provider, you will also need to set up access to the mailboxes on each of your staff's computers.

ONE/Northwest does not offer any email hosting services.   ONE/Northwest will assist in getting a service provider and setting up mailboxes, but maintaining this account, and setting up individual users' computers is beyond the scope of our services.

What are DNS records?

DNS stands for Domain Name System, and DNS records are the records that map domain names (e.g. www.onenw.org) onto the numeric addresses of specific computers on the internet.  The computers that "look up" DNS records are known as name servers or DNS servers.

The name-to-number translation system that DNS provides makes it possible to move websites between different servers by changing the DNS records associated with a domain name.  ONE/Northwest will often do this for clients who have an existing website on a third-party webserver, and want to switch to ONE/Northwest's web hosting services. They keep the same domain name, but point the name to a different web server address by changing the DNS record. In this way the new site can replace the old one, without having to change the domain name.

What is DNS Hosting?

A DNS hosting provider is the service provider that hosts the name servers that store the DNS records for your domain.  DNS hosting providers generally allows you to make changes to the DNS records (also known as the DNS zone file).

ONE/Northwest will assist our website clients with the necessary setup, manage the DNS hosting account, and make sure that renewal of the account takes place.

What is Web Hosting?

All the contents of your website must live on a special computer called a web server. The company who owns and maintains the server is your web hosting provider.   ONE/Northwest provides web hosting services (only) to clients from whom we build websites.

What does ONE/Northwest do for me?  What do I need to do for myself?

The following table summarizes the services that ONE/Northwest provides to its website consulting clients, and which services clients are responsible for providing themselves.

You are responsible for renewing your domain name through your domain registrar and for establishing and maintaining email services. This also includes keeping track of your username and password for each service provider.

Please share this with all relevant staff in your organization who may have questions or need information about these topics, such as your bookkeeper or accountant.

ONE/Northwest is responsible for ensuring that your website hosting, DNS hosting, and DNS configuration are maintained. These are the services ONE/Northwest provides in exchange for our annual web hosting fees. ONE/Northwest will answer questions about domain names and registration, and email hosting and configuration, but is not responsible for maintaining these services.

Note: ONE/Northwest began offering DNS hosting services in March 2007; if you launched your site before then, you may still have DNS hosting services with another provider.