Sometimes, you might not want to invest in domain name while building a website or just learning to make websites. Freenom offers free domain name, which you can use in such situations. This video will help you to register a free domain name for your website from freenom.com.
What is a domain name?
Domain name is a human-readable text assigned to an IP address. When you want your website to be accessible on the internet, you host it on a server. A server is accessible by it’s IP address. An IP address looks like this: 35.154.57.223, which is difficult to remember. Hence, it makes difficult to access your website via IP address. A domain name, assigned to an IP address, is used to access your website and easy to remember.
For example domain name www.learnbywatch.com is linked to 35.154.57.223 IP address. It is easy to remember www.learnbywatch.com than 35.154.57.223. When you type www.learnbywatch.com in the address bar of your browser, the browser calls the website hosted at 35.154.57.223 and present it to you.
Do I need a domain name?
When you are building a website, you don’t need a domain name. You can make a website on a local server using XAMPP or WAMP or some other LAMP stack. You can also make a website on a web server and access it via IP address. You need a domain name only when you want to make it easily accessible on the internet.
People can still access your website on the internet via IP address, but as you can see that it is difficult to remember IP address than a domain name. Hence, it is highly recommended to register a domain name for your website.
I am learning website development, do I need a domain name?
You can make a website on localhost and do not need a domain name to access that. When you are learning to make a website on a web server purchased from the famous hosting providers you might need a domain name before you can access the website. Because most of the service providers use server management software like cPanel, Plesk or Webmin. Many server management software restrict access to a website by its IP address for security reasons and allow to access a website only by its domain name.
This means if you want to make a website on a web server, you need a domain name before starting development.
Note: LearnByWatch also provides low-cost hosting for students who are learning web development. You can buy hosting from here: Web Hosting for Students
Can I get a domain name for free?
Domain name is not free, you need to pay for a domain name before you can use that for your website. This is true for Top Level Domains (TLD) like .com, .org, .in but there are certain domains like .tk, .ml etc which you can get for free for some time from vendors. One such domain vendor is freenom.
I suggest you get a free domain name from freenom, attach the domain name to your server’s IP address, and build your website while you are learning or its in development mode. Once you finish development, buy a top level domain (TLD) for your website, release freenom domain from IP address and link the new domain name to your server.