Domain, hosting, DNS and SSL: what they are and what must belong to you

Picture a shop. The domain is the name on the sign that customers remember. DNS is the information desk that turns the name into an exact address: street and building. Hosting is the premises themselves, where the shelves stand and the staff work. SSL is a sealed envelope: nothing the customer and the shop pass to each other can be read or swapped along the way.

As MDN explains, you can’t buy a domain name outright: you pay for the right to use it for one or more years, and you can renew that right, with priority over anyone else who wants it. But you never own the name permanently. If the renewal isn’t paid, the domain is eventually released.

What to know about the .kz zone — according to the KazNIC registry itself (nic.kz):

• KazNIC operates the .kz zone but does not register new domains itself: you go to one of the accredited registrars, whose list is published on nic.kz
• On first registration, the location of the server equipment in Kazakhstan is specified
• .com.kz requires no additional documents, while several other zones, such as .org.kz or .edu.kz, require the organisation’s documents
• Changes to domain data are carried out only after confirmation from the current administrative email
• The registry does not guarantee recovery of a domain deleted for non-payment; recovery is possible within 60 days of deletion and is a paid procedure

DNS (the Domain Name System) translates human-friendly names into server IP addresses. A domain’s settings are stored as records — lines that each have their own job. The main types are defined in IETF standards:

One wrong record can take down both the website and email at once. In our experience, MX and TXT are the records most often forgotten when changing hosting: the site has moved and works, but emails from the contact form stop arriving or land in spam.

Hosting is a server connected to the internet around the clock, on which your website runs. Think of it as renting premises: anything from a desk in a shared office to a separate building. The choice depends on how complex the site is and how much it matters that it doesn’t depend on its neighbours.

There is also a CDN — a network of servers that keeps copies of images and files closer to visitors and speeds up loading. It is an addition to hosting, not a replacement for it.

The name SSL has stuck out of habit: the SSL protocol itself is deprecated, and today connections are protected by its successor, TLS. A certificate confirms that the site really is tied to the domain and turns on HTTPS. As web.dev puts it, HTTPS protects a site’s integrity and stops outsiders from eavesdropping on or tampering with data between the site and the visitor, and many new browser features work only over HTTPS.

Free Let’s Encrypt certificates are designed for automatic renewal. If the automation breaks, or the certificate was renewed by hand and someone forgot, the browser shows visitors a warning instead of the site — for a business that’s almost the same as a locked door. Lifetimes are getting shorter: Let’s Encrypt has announced that from 10 February 2027 its default certificates will be valid for 64 days, and from 16 February 2028 for 45 days. A fixed “every 60 days” renewal schedule will no longer be enough — one more reason to leave renewal to automation.

A contractor may sincerely want to help and register the domain “in their own name to save time”. The problems come later: when you change contractors, have a dispute or simply lose touch. KazNIC’s rules show why this matters: changes to domain data are confirmed from the administrative email, and transferring a domain to another holder requires an official letter from the current registrant. If the registrant isn’t you, the decision isn’t yours either.