The world of things is grouped into three categories for me. There’s things I know, things I don’t know, and things that in order for me to understand they even exist you’d have to go back to the Big Bang to give me enough context to get a grip on. I think that most of us think that most people know what we know, or at least have enough context to get up to speed pretty quickly. Recently, however, I find myself talking to a lot of end-user website owners and I’ve come to realize that is not so. I’ve had to have many Big Bang conversations with website owners in order to explain what I felt were pretty fundamental pieces of the Internet. So, I thought I’d try to lay out the basic things that I think everyone that owns a website needs to know.
Many of the people that cross my path daily are legitimately trying to understand all the moving parts of their website; but there is a sub-community that promotes willful ignorance as well. In some circles it has become cache to be incompetent with technology. We wouldn’t dream of saying things like “I take my car to work but I have no bloody idea how to drive” or “Lawnmower? Not a clue how it works, when it runs out of gas I just throw it out and buy a new one because I have no idea where the gas goes in”. But it is somehow OK, and in fact fashionable, to say “my website? Not a clue how it works. When it stops working I just scream and yell at random people until someone fixes it”.
So here’s my attempt to help.
In order for a website to work, there are three things that need to be in place:
- Domain Name Service: the invisible thing that links your domain to your hosting package.
- A domain name: example.com
- A hosting package that contains your website files: one of a billion web hosts like GoDaddy.com
When your website visitors fire up their browsers and go to http://example.com some interesting things happen.
- Their web browser asks your Domain Name Servers “what is the IP address for example.com?” and (hopefully) your name servers return an IP address.
- Their web browser then requests example.com from that IP address.
- Your website appears in their browser.
This all takes place in a few seconds and is, quite frankly, boring as hell. So, let’s try to add some context.
Let’s try to relate this to your home phone:
- The Domain Name Service is analogous to the phone book
- A domain name is analogous to your phone number
- A hosting package is analogous to your actual handset
So, let’s make a phone call instead of calling up a website.
- I don’t know your phone number so I open the phone book and look it up / web browser asks your Domain Name Servers “what is the IP address for example.com?”
- I then dial your phone number / web browser then requests example.com from that IP address
- Your phone rings and you answer it / website appears in my browser
Assuming that analogy worked for you, let’s look at some of the common pitfalls that happen to both websites and phone calls.
When using a phone we know that there are many reasons why someone doesn’t answer their phone, so here are the analogous reasons a website doesn’t come up:
- The person you’re calling doesn’t hear it ringing / The web host is currently screwed up in some fashion so it can’t respond to the request
- There is no handset plugged in at the house / There is no hosting package active at the web host the IP address points to
- The person you’re calling has call display and hates you so is not answering / The website has a firewall and you are being blocked because it hates you
What happens when I move houses / web hosts?
Much like moving to a new house, moving web hosts is kind of the same thing. If I was moving houses I would:
- Tell the phone company my new address and they would associated my phone number with my new address / update my DNS to the IP address of my new web host
- Take my handset from my old house to my new house / copy my website files from my old web host package to my new web host package
To my thinking, almost anything that can happen to a website can be related to a similar thing that can happen to a phone call and that analogy removes a lot of the mystique surrounding web site management.