I’ve been looking through the internet and i haven’t found an answer, everything i find is saying i should use a website like godaddy to register it to my name but i need to pay a yearly quota and it leaves me asking myself why can’t i just grab a URL not owned by anyone else
In: Technology
Your computer has an IP address that is a bunch of numbers, and it can change periodically.
For the internet to work as it does, someone needs to maintain a database that says “reddit.com goes to 123.456.789.012” and periodically update it when the IP changes. These databases have to be synchronized worldwide, and they are what web browsers use to figure out how to connect to websites.
The services that maintain these databases aren’t free – so even if you are not paying GoDaddy to actually host your website, it costs a nominal fee for them to maintain an entry in their database that says “OPsWebsite.com goes to 123.456.789.012” and keep it up to date.
Without that fee, you can still host a website, but anyone who visits will need to type in your IP address every time. The reason you can’t register a free domain is because the domains only exist in the databases of the companies that register them. If someone types “OPsWebsite.com” into their web browser it looks for the listing in the database and if it’s not there, it gets a 404 error.
It’s a bit like the old timey phone books – your phone number was your phone number, but being listed in the phone book meant someone could look up your name and find the phone number.
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