Your business making hand-crafted beerkegs would like this simple Web address http://www.beerkeg.com

This is free with a NetHeaven Standard Membership.

Caveats

It takes the domain name beerkeg.com to do this, and the InterNIC domain registry charges a registration fee. To register a domain name, you also need DNS for it, which we provide free, but we can't do anything about that registry fee except offer some free alternatives. None of them are as desireable as a regular domain name.

It also takes the virtual Web server www.beerkeg.com to do this, and there are two kinds:

• name-based - included free with any membership
• IP-based - included as part of our Premium Memberships

Name-based virtual servers require a "new" Web feature (new in 1997 when this page was first written) not supported by older browsers. IP-based virtual servers work with any browser.

Click here to see if your browser supports name-based virtual servers.

Users with older browsers have to access name-based virtual server sites using Web addresses like

http://www.beerkeg.com/beerkeg

Working as desired with old browsers is not the only advantage of IP-based virtual servers. For example, suppose you want both of these addresses to reach your site

http://www.beerkeg.com http://beerkeg.com

That requires two name-based virtual servers but only a single IP-based virtual server.
 

A lot of people are very confused about domains. They think a website and a domain are more or less the same thing, but in fact domains were around years before the Web existed. If you don't really know what a domain is, we suggest you read what a domain is.

To register a domain name, you need DNS (Domain Name Service) for it, which we provide free with any NetHeaven account. We'll also prepare and submit your registration application for free, but the InterNIC registry will charge you a fee of $70, which covers the first two years. (The fee used to be $100.)
 

The "virtual" in "virtual server" just means that our server pretends to be lots of servers so it looks like you have your own. For a normal, or "IP-based", virtual server, our server actually pretends to be a lot of different computers, each with its own IP address. The server responds with the data for your website if the query comes in addressed to the IP address of your virtual computer.

For "name-based" virtual servers, all the queries are sent to the same IP address, and the Web server relies on the browser sending the name of the site the browser wants to access. Version 1.0 of the Web protocol didn't include the server name in the query, but version 1.1 does.

In essence, old browsers contact the server and say "send whatever site you have", and the server sends its primary site. Newer browsers say "send the www.beerkeg.com site", and the server knows what to do.

With a handful of exceptions, when an old browser accesses one of our Standard Membership named-based virtual server Web addresses, the site the server sends back is

Commercial.Com business listing  

If Fred doesn't want to pay the InterNIC's domain registration fee, we will assign him a free subdomain of one of our domains. Fred could then have one of these totally free Web addresses http://www.beerkeg.webaddrs.com http://www.beerkeg.netheaven.com  

• Domains: What one is - and what it's not!
• Domains and the Web - and Virtual Servers
• How to use your Web space
• How to use your Web space for a business site