Web experts, opinions needed for domain name registration... (1 Viewer)

[Dave Mack]

Hiya guys!

I am releasing my CD next month and need to get my website going.
Can you give me advice on what's the best and most reasonable domain name register service? I have seen several. Also for site hosting, maintenance?
I am a TOTAL newbie to this.

Thanks! d

 

[Citizen87645]

My friend turned me on to www.aplus.net. He has high standards for this sort of thing and I've never once heard him complain. They will do both the registration and hosting.

 

[Carl Miller]

I use futurequest.net for hosting and dotster for domain registrations. I've been with futurequest since 1999, and highly recommend them.

 

[Dave Mack]

Thanks guys!
I will look into these!

d

 

[JohnRice]

I have always used godaddy.com for registration and have never seen a reason to change.

Hosting is usually a mixed bag, and depends on how much you want to take care of yourself. I have used Dotserving for about 3 years now. They are cheap and offer fully packed plans, but are probably geared more toward doing your own administration, which is what I do. Since they offer good plans and downtime is almost nonexistant, they fit my needs.

 

[DaveF]

My suggestion, as a hobbyist:
* If you need minimum cost and (hopeful) long-term service: Godaddy.com
* If you want an easier to use system at a bit higher cost: 1and1.com
* If you're a Mac guy and doing this at home: Godaddy for Domain Name and .Mac for hosting, email; iWeb for web design.


I recommend going with a larger company. I used a small shop the past three years, which provided good prices and good service. This year, when I had some serious problems, they failed to respond to about a months worth of service requests. For about two weeks I had no email, and I feared I was going to lose my domain name to a virtual hijacking. I sent multiple emails to the hosting company, the owner, the registrar (as well as a few phone calls), and I reported their bad behavior to ICAAN.

I finally got the problem resolved. It also cost me $60 in renewal fees to get their attention. In fighting this, I found their prices were no longer competitive and their service features were being reduced.

I left immediately to GoDaddy.com.

I would prefer to work with 1and1.com -- their overall online sales system and setup / configuration tools seem substantially easier than GoDaddy.com. However, GoDaddy offers a better rock-bottom price, which is what I need for now.

 

[ChristopherDAC]

I've been using "ix Web Hosting" for a couple of months now, since my previous provider literally died, and I've had no complaints so far, although that's hardly a record to base a choice on. The price was certainly cheap, and they do register domain names.

 

[Michael Harris]

Stay away from "RegistryFly". Due to their non-existent customer service, my domain has lapsed. Their phone support is always busy, their trouble ticket system, which promises a response within 24 hours, does not work, etc. When I tried to renew my domain, I just got an email telling me that the renewal attempt failed but I was still charged. Sorry for the rant .

 

[Andrew Pratt]

I use GoDaddy for domain registration and RealWebHost for our forums and webpages.

 

[Jason Harbaugh]

I prefer to register the domain and host at the same place. Usually the hosting company register's your domain for free anyway so that saves you a few bucks.

I've been using startlogic.com for quite a few different projects now. Great service and great price.

 

[Dave Mack]

Wow! You guys ROCK!

I really appreciate all the advice!
I am at the end of my recording, one song left to do and then mastering and then off to replication and I will have to have my site up and running for when the CDs go out. I am a complete newb when it comes to site stuff and I am very grateful for all the help!

Any opinions on a good, cheap web designer for a modest site? I have a person at my old job who does it but can't hurt to learn options.

thanks! d

 

[bobbyg2]

http://www.getafreelancer.com/

You can hire someone there to design, and even maintain your site.

 

[DaveF]

While my wife is a print person -- web design is not her professional goal -- she is certainly capable of small-scale, promotional web design. I don't know what qualifies as "cheap" but you could contact her via her website if you were interested.

http://www.halodesigns.net

 

[Carl Miller]

You could also consider using blog software, like Wordpress for your site. It's extremely easy to use even for novices, and you can even buy a theme for it for relatively low cost over at sitepoint.com. If you're willing to get your feet wet a little but not so much that you'd have to learn a lot, this might be a good route to take.

elance.com is also a good place to find designers and all sorts of talented people for coding, programming etc.

 

[JohnRice]

Blog (or Content Management) software is certainly an option. The main downside is that you can't typically get away from the "blog" look and the learning curve can be a bit steep for someone with no web experience. Still, you can do a fair amount of customizing without buying a commercial template. I would probably steer away from that approach if you want to look like more of an individual. Just as an example though, Here is a site I have for movies. Yeah, I haven't been keeping up with it for a while. Life has been intruding on my wasted time. But, it is an example.

 

[Jay Taylor]

I’m responding late to the domain name portion of this thread. If you believe that the domain name will become valuable at some point then I would never have the domain name registered with the same company that hosts your web site. I would want a retail account with a company such as register.com that would give you full control over the domain name. This will give you the ability to point the domain name to any hosting company that you desire, at any time that you desire without relying on a nonexistent customer service to do so.

If your site becomes very popular, you may need to advance from shared hosting to leasing or owning the entire server. Having full control of your domain name with a retail account will allow you to pick and choose the hosting company without having your domain name being held hostage by the hosting company.

Many domain name registering companies will give you the choice of a more expensive retail account where you have full control over your domain name, or their discounted account where you submit changes to their customer service department and hope for the best.

Domain names for fun that you have no intention of making famous would be okay to register with the same company that hosts your web site.

 

[Jason Harbaugh]

Good points on the domain registering Jay.

 

[DaveF]

I don't fully understand this advice. You're still at risk of having the registrar holding your domain name hostage. I had issues with my last host/registrar and my domain name was "hostage" for a bit. But the same problem could have happened with a registrar-only company.

If you lose control of your domain name, you're sunk regardless of whether its the registrar or a registrar/hosting company.

 

[nolesrule]

There's a huge difference between getting hosting services from a registrar and getting registration services from a host.

I believe Jay was referring to the latter.

As far as registrars are concerned, if you use a reputable one, you'll be fine (as long as you always renew the registration on time).

If you buy a hosting package from a web host and they offer to register the domain for you, they often retain the rights to the domain name, so you can't take it with you (ie, you never had control of it to begin with).

As a web developer who does hosting on the side for my clients, I register domains on their behalf all the time. Of course, if they want to leave my hosting, I always turn over control of the domain name to my client and tell them they will need to adjust the name servers themselves.

I currently have 46 domains for personal, business and client use, and I use godaddy.com as the registrar for all of them.

 

[Jay Taylor]

Regardless of which method you choose be sure to keep your account paid up or you risk losing your domain name. I have six domain names registered through three different companies. All but one are in a retail account so that I can point the domain name to a different hosting company as needed. The names that I am most concerned about I register for 10 years at a time to minimize any issue with a credit card expiring.

I had customer service problems with two of the names in a discount account so I upgraded them to a retail account and have not had a problem since. At any time I can logon to these accounts and do whatever is needed to keep the domain names current without relying on customer service. With discount accounts you are at the mercy of a company that may make disreputable decisions concerning your domain name to force you to keep your web hosting with them. As nolesrule mentioned, if you acquire the domain name as part of a hosting package, you never had control of the name to begin with.

There may be legal ways to try to force the hosting company to make the changes to your domain name that you desire but the effort may be futile. I personally would rather do what it takes to avoid such a scenario and that is to register the name separately from the hosting company and get a full retail account.