Eh, I’m new to this sort of internet thing and I’ve finally gotten around to setting up my own business (for those that have followed along on my saga, can you believe it?!), with a domain name to boot. However, after the fact I realized that I’d need some way to put my actual information out there, so I’ve been kicking around looking for stuff all day. Unfortunately, it seems that everything I’ve looked out gives you a domain for free whenever you sign up for their service.
So my questions to knowledgeable Dopers is this… is there any that you can use your existing one with? How does that work? Which one is the best, and most importantly, cheapest? Anything else I should know before hand?
If I’ve left out any important information in my quest for answers, just let me know and I’ll try to give 'em my best shot.
Since you are new at this game, go to GoDaddy.com to register a domain name, and then, use them as your web host. It’s a good place to start for the price. Stay with them at least six months. If you like them, stay. If not, after six months the experience will help you to find a different web host.
I don’t know if they’re the cheapest (because hosting prices have fallen dramatically over the last couple years), but I’ve had a great experience with Dreamhost. Their uptime isn’t perfect, but any time I noticed a service outage and e-mailed them, the problem was fixed within a matter of minutes.
They also offer a ton of features and a ton of bandwidth (the latter may be more useful than the former).
They also offer a free domain when you sign up (or at least they used to), so you may as well use this to pick up the .net version of your domain (assuming you only own the .com version at the moment) and have that domain forward itself to your .com. If nothing else, it keeps the cybersquatters off your lawn.
S’alright. Let’s see… I do already have my first (and only) domain name through GoDaddy and I wasn’t able to figure out the set-up to be able to go on and get my hosting there too. I know, I know. I’m probably too inept to even be doing this in the first place. However, seeing as how I’m already here, I guess I’ll continue to forge ahead.
Dreamhost sounds intriguing, especially since I can get other .whatevers to complete the collection. However, can anyone explain to me how I actually do the process that gets me the hosting first and the extra domain second, so that I may incorporate them all together? This all undoubtedly sounds silly to you more experienced folks, but please forgive my ignorance. I’m trying to fight it though!
Anyhoo, thanks for all the advice so far guys!! If anyone else has any suggestions, I’d love to hear them. I’ll keep checking back for updates as I wander back over to DH.
With GoDaddy, just log into your account and choose Hosting> Web Site Hosting. You buy the package you want and assign it to the domain you want.
If you want to use other hosting, it’s easy… just sign up with whatever host you want, and they’ll send you a list of name servers in their “Welcome” email. You plug those name servers into your domain control at GoDaddy, effectively directing all traffic from that domain to your host.
For what its worth, I’ve got all my domains at GoDaddy, and my hosting elsewhere. It works great.
Happily, thanks to you all’s help, I’ve managed to figure out this hosting business and build my page. Woohoo! And since I prefer the one-stop-and-shop approach, I took the advice of using GoDaddy for all of it. At least, now that I sorta know what I’m doing. By using them, I got some additional dot suffixes for only 1.99 a piece. Thanks!!