Your domain name is a sign post to your website. Our primary domain name is dmacmedia.ie but you can also reach our page by typing dmacmedia.com. A good domain name is one of the factors that help your site stay near the top of search results.
Hosting is the physical space your website takes up. The larger and busier a website is, the larger the hosting package required.
DomainsWe provide guidance on choosing an effective domain name. We look after the setting up of your domain, attached email address and manage any future changes needed.
The .ie and .com domains are the two most widely used in Ireland. A .com can be purchased globally where as a .ie is only available to a business operating in Ireland.
At Dmac we purchase and manage domains for you.
.com €15+VAT annually
.ie€30+VAT annually
For all other domain pricing or for help choosing the right name, please contact us.
Basically put a domain name is unique identifier or label. Each domain name is split up into various levels and sublevels separated by dots (.) and read from right to left. Eg. www.dmacmedia.ie is read as
Where a domain name points to, ie. what website, is dependant on the nameservers it has been given. A nameserver is a specialised server used to store information for each domain. This can include what server to bring web users to, where to send emails, or even just snippets of text. Without these, your domain will not function properly.
If you own a .com domain you may have recieved communication from ICANN.
"ICANN is a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with participants from all over the world dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable and interoperable. It promotes competition and develops policy on the Internet's unique identifiers. Through its coordination role of the Internet's naming system, it does have an important impact on the expansion and evolution of the Internet."
"The IEDR is the registry for .ie Internet domain names and maintains the database of .ie registered domain names". In essence if you want to purchase a .ie domain name you must register with the IEDR. This usually involves sending a signed letter on headed paper stating your intent of use for the .iedomain name. Dmac will walk you through this process.
Your website can have as many domain names as you like, although we recommend only having one or two to avoid confusion. It can be good practice to have multiple domain names with various relevant keywords pointing to your website. It is advisable though to have one main domain name that all other domain names redirect or alias to.
HostingWe offer managed hosting for your website.
Our most popular package as it covers the physical hosting of your system but also gives full support to your website. This includes graphic tweaks, on-going training and support five days a week. Contact us for a detailed hosting spec.
For sites with heavier traffic and/or more automation a Virtual Machine may be a better option than shared hosting. We have many different levels of managed VM which can give more power when required. Talk to one of our sales representatives today to discuss your sites requirements
Website and mail needs to be stored on a server. Hosting is the physical space required to store the information. Hosting packages give different storage size and bandwith to allow for the amount of content on a site and the traffic to it.
The availability of a website is measured by the percentage of a year in which the website is publicly accessible and reachable via the internet. This is different from measuring the uptime of a system. Uptime refers to the system itself being online, however it does not take into account being able to reach it as in the event of a network outage.
In the majority of cases the hosting of a website and mail can be done on the same hosting package. For a very large organisation with a large volume of email traffic we would recommend having two separate hosting packages
This depends on the size of the websites and the traffic to them. Two small websites can easily share the same hosting space but you are already limiting their capabilities. For example if they both became quite busy they would start to run very slowly.
Free hosting is offered by different companies and usually comes with very limited support. It is generally supported by advertisements and can be quite limited in access and control. In most cases your site name will be part of a subdomain (yoursite.example.com) or a directory (www.example.com/~yourname). Paid hosting allows you to have a second level domain (www.yoursite.com) which makes it far easier for users to find your site.
