Website Domain Registration & Hosting-- every answer brings two new questions!

archonwarp

I happened upon an idea for a regional website with potential for lots of fun (and a very small chance of making enough money to pay for the site's hosting if it takes off! ) I can (probably) learn enough to code the site within a few months of reading. The problem is that I have no idea what to do about domain registration and hosting. The more I read up on everything, the more questions I have. I figure there has to be several people in the know on this wonderful forum, and if anyone can help me out, I'd be very grateful!

Here are some of the things I can't seem to find answers for through my googlings:
If I buy a domain from an accredited registrar and my site takes off in popularity, will I end up paying more for the domain when the time to renew comes up? If so, is there a way to make sure that I 'own' the domain? Can I do anything to prevent someone from buying it out from underneath me (I've heard horror stories about this).

What should I look for in a host? I don't need a ton of bandwidth, mostly just a couple of subdomains since this is a regional thing that could very well be broken down to even further local levels. I am going to be using some type login + comment system [closer to blog style than forum style]; is there any specific requirement I'll need from a host for that? Thanks a ton for any help you're able to give!

admanb

Unless you're dealing with scumbags, your domain price should be fixed. You avoid having people buying it out from under you by not missing a payment. :P My dad uses pairNIC for domain registration, and if my dad uses it they probably have a good reputation.

Hosting -- as long as you're planning on writing/installing your login/comment system in a common language, such as PHP, you're not gonna need to look very hard.

archonwarp

Thanks for the fast response, Admanb! That helps a lot. Any thoughts on Godaddy.com as a host/domain registrar? They're pretty cheap in both respects it seems.

Daenris

archonwarp wrote: »

Thanks for the fast response, Admanb! That helps a lot. Any thoughts on Godaddy.com as a host/domain registrar? They're pretty cheap in both respects it seems.

Some people hate them, some love them. I work on a site that a friend has registered and hosted through GoDaddy, and I've never had any problems with it except that it can be pretty slow sometimes, but that's going to be a problem across the board with any cheaper shared-hosting provider.

Since I've never had any problems, I've never had to deal with their customer service, which -- in my experience at least -- is where a lot of the complaints arise in most service oriented businesses.

Lail

I just switched over to GoDaddy for hosting because of the price. The domain registration is easy-peasy, however I find their hosting thing a little bit complicating. They offer tons of different services that it can be hard to find exactly what you're looking to edit in your user panel. Granted, I haven't spent much time with it, so once I do it'll probably be easier to navigate around.

Edit: My siggy has a link to Axishost. They're slightly more expensive than GoDaddy, but I feel they're much easier to use for hosting. Either would be a good choice.

pacbowl

Yeah some people have nothing but problems with them and some people have none. Most of the problems seem to come from either shady billing procedures or stonewalling and difficulty moving the domain if you no longer want GoDaddy.

I registered my domain with Netsol about 11 years ago and have it hosted by Earthlink. I know there are cheaper registrars but Netsol was king back in the day and I like their control panel. I also haven't had any issues with their customer support. One time the technical contact for my domain changed to some guy I had never heard of. I called Netsol and had it resolved in about 30 min.

I also like Earthlink for hosting. $20/mo for 5gb of space and 20gb of traffic. I also like that FTP transfers don't count towards the domain traffic. It's a bit expensive but I've never had any downtime, their domain support knows their shit and I like their domain control panel. They let you modify all the DNS records for your domain.

useless4

Go to bluehost.com and let them host you up cheap.
Been using them for years without issue.

Actually had their ceo work on an issue for me at 3am on a sunday a few years ago.

I think he is like steve jobs, just randomly looks at things that are emailed to him and occasionally works issues instead of forwarding them back to his support staff.