One of the joys of owning a website is the opportunity it presents for you to expand your already mind-boggling list of usernames and passwords. Find one place to write all your website passwords down (physically, on something in the real world) and store it someplace that it will be safe for years. The passwords and access information that you have no use for now will be critical when something goes wrong, or when it's time to update. So just who will be giving you more login stuff to remember, and what's it all for? Funny you should ask. Your Registraar The first step to getting a website up and running is getting a domain name. Whether you're paying $7 a year to one company or $35 a year to another, you're still getting the same exact service. And you won't even really have much interaction with this company once your site is up. Basically, all of the domain names in the world are owned/leased by one company which uses a large number of subcontractors to lease them to people like you. So you don't actually 'own' the name, you're just renting it a year at a time. When you select a registraar/lease a domain name, they'll give you a username and password to access information about the domain, including it's Name Servers. More on those later. Your Host Once you have a name, you want to put a site on it. That's where the host comes in. You pay the hosting company a fee (either monthly or yearly) to store your files on a big computer with a fast internet connection (called a server) and make them available when someone tries to access your website. They'll give you a username and password to access your hosting account information (such as your hosting plan and billing info). They'll also give you a username and password for FTP access to your site. FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is the process of actually moving files from one place to another. In most cases, this means getting them from your computer (or your designer's) to the computer your website is hosted on. Most FTP programs operate a lot like a windows network. You login and connect to the host computer, then you simply select files that are on your hard drive and Transfer copies of them onto your host computer. Because you don't want just anyone to login and start changing your site, that's all password protected. But you're not done yet! Updating your Name Servers. So you have a domain name and now you have a host. All done, right? Hardly. Because there are a billion domain names in the world, and probably almost as many different hosting companies, you have to connect the dots. You have to tell your Registraar exactly where your Host is, so that they know where to point your domain. Of course there's lots of techy jargon to cloud the process. This Server (computer) on which your hosting company stores your site has a name (a "Domain Name Server"). When you register for hosting, they'll give you that info. It's sort of like a telephone number for your website's server. You'll then need to go back to your Registraar and login to give them that Name Server information (called, simply enough "updating your DNS entry"). Your DNS is usually in a format similar to "ns1.RandomHostingServer.com and ns2.RandomHostingServer.com" About 24 - 48 hours after you do that, typing your web address into a browser will bring up whatever files are on your server...files which are hopefully your new website. Once your site is up and running, you won't need to talk to your registraar again unless you want to buy another domain name, or change hosting companies. That's why it's important to write down your password information someplace safe and durable, since it's often years between the time you first contact your Registraar and the time you contact them again. You'd be amazed at how many people can't even remember who their Registraar is, nonetheless what their username and password might be.