Let's make sure you know what you need and what you get when you register a domain.
The process of putting a new domain on the Internet involves:
Registering a domain does not automatically give you a web page, nor does it give you a place to "host" it. A domain name is a bit like a trademark; registering it simply gives you the right to use that name to point to your web page or your email service -- but you still have to set up that web page or that mailbox.
Oh, there are companies that offer a bundle of (low-quality) hosting with (overpriced) domain names, as a nod to the fact that you need to have some form of hosting in order to use a domain name. Let's move on.
Owning your own domain name won't change the way you get to the Internet. Maybe you use AOL, or Earthlink, or your cable TV company, or even your local phone company. Think of them as someone who gives a dial tone so you can make outgoing phone calls to the Internet.
Your presence on the Internet is like having a phone number so that people can call you, too, but that's where the "phone call" analogy breaks down. Unless you make special arrangements, your home computer is not like your telephone, because its Internet address is likely to change almost every day. How could people call you if your phone number changed every time you made a phone call?
Sure, you have an email address; that works because your service provider has a permanent location on the Internet. Their servers have a permanent "Internet Protocol" address. They are like mailboxes or answering machines that are always available. That's why someone can send you email and see it accepted; it is on your provider's server waiting for you to pick it up, while your own computer is turned off overnight.
What is a web page? It's mostly a text file, which has some "tags" that tell a web browser how to format it, how to make it look the way you expect a web page to look. Your file becomes a web page when you arrange for it to be hosted. Hosting is the service of keeping your web content in a known location that is accessible from the Internet, something called "web space."
You may even have some "web space" that was given to you by your access provider the same way you were given an email address. The catch is that you probably have to use their domain name to get to it. Maybe you have a friend -- let's call him Joe -- who has an ugly web address such as "http://www.example.com/users/~joesmith/mypage.html" Joe is sharing a little bit of web space with all the other users of example.com. Even so, this is a form of "hosting," which meets our second requirement described above.
Your domain name is a better, friendlier way to refer to the location of your "web space." Our friend Joe could own "JoeRocksPDX.com" and have it point to his example.com page above.
But you are not limited to using your access provider for hosting -- you can get web space from many different providers, and as you learn more about how the Web works, you may find a provider who can offer more sophisicated features. It's imporant to remember that you do not automatically get web space, or hosting, when you register a domain name.
Many sellers of domain names fail to emphasize the importance of Domain Name Service, or DNS. The "root name servers" can just barely keep track of all the millions of domain names; they can't also track the details of how to get to each one of them. Those details are kept in a widely distributed system, with many local "DNS hosts." Perhaps your hosting service provides DNS; you can also get it from a third-party company that does nothing but DNS. Every domain is supposed to have at least two "authoritative" name servers.
When someone wants to connect to your domain, the domain name registry sends that person's request to one of your DNS name servers, which will tell her computer where to find the server that hosts your domain. That, in a nutshell, is how the whole Internet works.
We use and recommend DNS Made Easy for DNS service. If you're trying to stretch your budget, there is also Zoneedit.com, which offers free DNS for up to five domains. There is also DynDNS which is an easy -- and free -- way to assign a name to a system without buying a domain.
Please review these required legal notices regarding domain registrations. All ICANN-accredited registries require you to agree to these terms, so we might as well get that out of the way now. (This link should open in a new window.)