Buying a domain name and hosting a website

[Ste]

Firstly, may I apologise.

I probably keep asking the same question but I don't get satisfactory answers or answers that I cannot understand (probably too general...not in bite sized pieces) or (more likely) remember.

Basically I have a great idea for a domain name and I want to buy it.

1. How can I buy it (who do I buy it from...any recommendations? How much should it cost?).

2. Can I buy the domain name and then upgrade the capability of the web site as I go along?(For example install chat forums and maybe ebiz stufff and videos etc.) WHat should I be looking to pay?

Thanks

Ste

[ducasi]

Buying your domain, go to the cheapest and the best... http://www.godaddy.com/

They will host your site and give you all the stuff you want as well, though it might be better to host elsewhere – I haven't really looked into their hosting prices and services.

[straycat]

Domain registrars that I have used:

Currently I use ENOM, which gives me very good prices, but that's chiefly because I'm a reseller, and get discounted rates. They also give excellent facilities, but again - it's more for technically adept folks.

123-reg - fairly basic service, but they are cheap and reliable. They also offer a site-building package at pretty good prices (£4.99 a month for their pro version), but I don't know anything about how good / not good it might be - the facilities look like they offer nearly everything you're talking about, but I stress again, I know nothing about how good this part is.

One problem with question like this is that you really can pay between virtually nothing, up to extortionate figures, depending on what you want, who you talk to, and the level of hand-holding you need. I run all my sites off one 'virtual' server which I rent - I get more disk space than I could ever need, all the faciliities I want, total versatility, great reliability and support, I can put as many sites as I like on it, and I pay 30 quid a month... which is excellent. BUT - I have to set up everything myself, from scratch, and it's not an option for beginners. The 123-reg package is likely to provide a lot, in a reasonably easy-to-setup fashion... but will probably be somewhat restrictive.

Hard to say without knowing a bit more about what you want, what you're willing to pay, and what your level of expertise is.

To get back to your questions though - I pay between three and seven pounds per domain, per anum. 123-reg prices are about the same. Once you have the domain, you can do as you like with it - if you settle on one web package, then later want more which said package can't give you, you can always move the domain to some other provider - it's yours to do as you wish with.

Installing forums / ebiz stuff - well - either you need to be technically very proficient, or you need to get someone to do it for you (at great cost), or you find a package like the 123-reg one. I think Yahoo offer something similar, Google either do, or are working up to it - there's quite a few places to look now.

Bit rambling, but I hope this helps,

Stray

[ducasi]

Originally Posted by ducasi

Buying your domain, go to the cheapest and the best... http://www.godaddy.com/

They will host your site and give you all the stuff you want as well, though it might be better to host elsewhere – I haven't really looked into their hosting prices and services.

I've now had a wee look and was so impressed I signed up for an economy account to check it out for real.

Here's a tip on how to get a better discount – up front it offers a 10% discount for signing up for 12 months, and 20% for 24 months. If you go for the the 2 month option, then at the last moment it will offer a 20% discount for 12 months and 30% discount for 24 months.

[El Salsero Gringo]

Originally Posted by straycat264

123-reg - fairly basic service, but they are cheap and reliable.

I have used this company too.

One thing to look out for is whether there are extra fees to move your domain *away* from the original registrar should you ever choose to do so. Its all well paying £1.99 for the domain, if you then get sh*tty service and have to pay £150 "administration fee" to move it somewhere else.

[Dreadful Scathe]

I used freeparking to register my domains - cheap , lots of options, and they dont lock you in so you can easily move your domains elsewhere. (although you probably wont want to)

My actual hosting I get through valuehost - £53.46 for a year for 1gb of space, 3 mysql databases, php etc..in other words, the ability to do fancy stuff like run a forum

I would recommend them both, having used them for many years.

[straycat]

Another very good one is A2B2 - I pay a little more (30 quid a month) - but I get 30 gig of disk space for that, and I can install anything I like (currently running PHP/Mysql & a few others) - really need to look at Ruby though.

They do cheaper packages, depending on your requirements. Also highly recommended - their reliability and support are both first-rate.

ESG - who have you found who charges for domain transfers away? 123-Reg don't do this (I shifted my domains away from them a couple of months back, purely for consolidation purposes) - I know some do, but £150 goes beyond unreasonable, and more into the criminal territory...

[ducasi]

Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe

My actual hosting I get through valuehost - £53.46 for a year for 1gb of space, 3 mysql databases, php etc..in other words, the ability to do fancy stuff like run a forum

With godaddy, I've just got 5 GB, 10 MySQL databases, blah, blah, blah, for just over $3 per month. About £20 for the year...

I'm happy so-far.

Oh, and for $15/month I can get 200GB disk, and 2TB bandwidth. They really appear to be cheaper than all the rest...

[Dreadful Scathe]

Originally Posted by ducasi

With godaddy, I've just got 5 GB, 10 MySQL databases, blah, blah, blah, for just over $3 per month. About £20 for the year...

I'm happy so-far.

Oh, and for $15/month I can get 200GB disk, and 2TB bandwidth. They really appear to be cheaper than all the rest...

oooh!

[Beowulf]

I bought my domains (plural.. very plural ) from Easily.co.uk quite cheap and good service, and I hosted them on BPWEB.NET

This wasn't the Cheapest method but as I'm hosting sites for a couple of companies, and I have (or should that be HAD) my own forums and support group websites it was the best option at the time. Full access to PHP, MySQL etc Unlimited UK Web Space ,Unmetered Bandwidth ,Unlimited Spam Protection ,Custom Control panel , Personal name servers , unlimited domain hosting, reseller ability etc. £30 pcm

if you want forums etc, then get a site that has PHP and MySQL, installing forums, galleries, shopping carts, database browsing stuff etc is a breeze and there's loads of cheap or free ready to roll PHP scrips out there that you just upload, configure and use with little or no programming knowledge.

[Dreadful Scathe]

Originally Posted by Beowulf1970

if you want forums etc, then get a site that has PHP and MySQL,

which is what i just said pah

[Peter]

Has any of your advice changed since Aug 06? Many thanks

[Dreadful Scathe]

not really - i think everyones comments are stil valid . I recently came across Streamline.net - The home of good value web hosting - very cheap indeed - as little as £23 a year for everything you need - some of the US sites are still cheaper though...

[tsh]

Make sure you register the domain through a company which will be around in 5 years time.
lt costs about about £50 a time to rescue a domain if your agent stops trading and you want to keep the address.

[Dreadful Scathe]

Originally Posted by tsh

Make sure you register the domain through a company which will be around in 5 years time.

give me a loan of that time machine

[Keefy]

Just beware of some of the cheap or even free domain registry companies, they tie you in to their services exclusively and charge a fortune to release your domain or make even simple changes for you. If you want to run web sites then there are three components that you need to look at -

1. The domain name
2. The DNS
3. The hosting

Most companies will supply you all three, but I find it better to mix and match and so that you are not reliant on just one supplier. Personally I use Easily for domain names, they are not the cheapest but I've never had any problems and they are flexible. Everything is under my direct control, one feature is that they allow you to change the Name Server (NS) records of the domain if you want to.

Easily have some basic DNS, suitable for most users, you can have three sub-domains and set up ANAME records. For more complex usage you can change the NS records to point to another DNS supplier, here I have used ZoneEdit for many years - it's free and fully flexible DNS control is available. Whatever domain register you use make sure that you have DNS control, ideally to the NS level, that way you can move your web hosting etc. anywhere you want.

I can't give a recommendation on web hosting because I tend to use owned colo servers Disk space and features such as PHP and MySQL (for forums hosting) are pretty cheap, what will cost you is the bandwidth/data transfer! Most cheap accounts come with something like a 5GB per month transfer limit, if you want more you pay for it. That should be ample for most small personal hobby type sites, but you can soon eat it up if things start getting serious. As a rough guide I would guess that something like these forums is running at around the 10 - 15GB per month level, but things like photo galleries with video will be way above that.

My recommendation is don't go for the cheapest, go for something that is flexible and you can swap things around. For starters you may find an all-in-one domain and hosting package adequate, but you may need the flexibility later to move the web hosting and/or upgrade the DNS. When you're trying to grow your site and move it to better facilities that is not the time to find that you've been locked in to one supplier! So shop around, get recommendations, but think ahead to where you want this to be in five years time.

HTH

[ducasi]

Originally Posted by Peter

Has any of your advice changed since Aug 06? Many thanks

No.

While I have the separated domain, DNS and hosting thing before, for sheer value, I still haven't found better than GoDaddy. It's cheap and flexible. There is no lock-in (though if you have paid for 2 years' hosting to get a discount, don't expect a refund if you only use 6 months.) You can upgrade if you need more bandwidth or disk space easily enough. You can take complete control of your DNS if you want. Changing registrar is not a hassle either.

As one of the biggest domain registrar in the world, they're certainly likely to still be around in 5 years time.

[Ste]

By the wya everyone, thanks for keeping this thing going. Really appreciate it.