LebGeeks

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#1 May 25 2013

mmk92
Member

Web Hosting and Domain Registration

Hey guys, I was looking up GoDaddy's domain registration and web hosting packages and their prices seemed pretty decent, also found that their provided web design tools were attractive and convenient, but after a quick research I found that their services are very unreliable and they seem to have a sketchy past. I have never published a website online before so I have no experience in this field, I have fair javascript knowledge but prefer web design tools provided by the web host. Where do you guys recommend I buy my web domain from, and where should I host my website? I'm looking for reliability/good prices.

Thanks a lot in advance!!

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#2 May 25 2013

Joe
Member

Re: Web Hosting and Domain Registration

I cannot recommend enough that you avoid "tools provided by the web host" and rely on other standards instead to deploy your code.
Hosting and deploying is a very large topic. I would gladly help you more, but you'd have to tell us more about your website and what are the technologies involved.

But in 99% of the cases, the tools that GoDaddy and the others will give you are evil.

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#3 May 25 2013

mmk92
Member

Re: Web Hosting and Domain Registration

@rahmu It's a very simple website, it's for a relative's catering business. It will consist of around 4 pages, 3 for information about the business, and one for a food gallery which can be updated by the owner of the business. I'm planning to make the design as simplistic as possible, make it look good, and compatible on smart phone browsers.

I already got the company's logo graphics, so I have a color scheme planned out for the entire webpage. I will try to avoid flash as much as possible, and will use javascript for the animations (if i implement any). My main problem is that I have no background in PHP or databases, so I was hoping some of those tools simplified the process for me. But I can always google some tutorials.

Finally for web hosting, what do you guys personally use, and what is your feedback regarding their services?

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#4 May 25 2013

Fischer
Member

Re: Web Hosting and Domain Registration

since it's your first site, i would recommend that you do the following:

register a domain name on godadddy, enter a coupon you can find plenty on fatwallet Note that some coupons are only available for US/Canada.

A coupon that works almost every time is cjc749fat

Just buy the name example.com. Once you get your domain, i would suggest to host it on free hosting services such as 000webhost.com simply because it's your first website, change the nameservers. If you're willing to invest some money go for justhost.com or hostgator.com, But since it's your first site i really suggest try free hosting providers. Small tip: never buy your domain from your hosting provider, that's why i'm telling you to buy from godaddy and host elsewhere. Are you done? Lets move to step 3!!

How to build it? I am not gonna make you a web developer today. So lets use wordpress, joomla or drupal. I suggest you go with wordpress.

And remember, Google and Youtube are your friends!

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#5 May 25 2013

rolf
Member

Re: Web Hosting and Domain Registration

I use GoDaddy for buying domains, but I hate their interface and control panel, so I'd recommend to stay away from them.
There are other hosts such as bluehost bluehost and dreamhost.
Nothing else to add to what others said.

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#6 May 25 2013

mmk92
Member

Re: Web Hosting and Domain Registration

Thanks a lot for the replies guys!! Designing and writing the website should be a trivial task after some research and work. But since it is my first published website, I still don't know where to go to for webhosting/domain registration. On the interwebz there is so much mixed reviews about godaddy that's why it's so confusing, and hosting the website on a separate host is probably a good idea.

tldr: My main concern is picking the right domain registrar/host combination, design/writing of the website isn't a big concert to me since i have a small but decent experience with web development.

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#7 May 25 2013

Fischer
Member

Re: Web Hosting and Domain Registration

Go with godaddy, it's the biggest domain registrar out there, and they have many coupons, so you can buy cheap domain names. alternatives are domain.com netfirms.com namecheap.com and many others, godaddy is the most well known out there, i say it again host it on 000webhost.com, you don't know anything about websites yet so stay cheap and go with free hosting.

there are many free templates to wordpress joomla and drupal google for example "best free themes wordpress" you will have a million result.
Please just watch the videos that i linked to, above, and if you still have questions tell us.  if you want to start your journey absolutely then visit dot.tk, they'll give you example.tk for free.

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#8 August 19 2013

mmk92
Member

Re: Web Hosting and Domain Registration

I ended up going with namecheap for the domain name, and hostgator for the web hosting (didn't want any free host, needed something robust and stable).

Hostgator's interface was very straight forward and I was able to quick install wordpress and link it to my domain name with no complications, but I faced something rather annoying. After paying and registering for the service, I used it for less than a day before they suspended my account completely with NO prior notice because they needed my personal information(credit card I used for billing, and some sort of paper identification. Do you guys think it's worth keeping up with hostgator or just changing hosts all together? I paid a cent for the first month since I used a coupon so I can afford shifting to a different host.

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#9 August 19 2013

rolf
Member

Re: Web Hosting and Domain Registration

I tried namecheap and had some trouble - but that was with some weird situations... for .com and other common stuff they're probably good.
I think Hostgator are OK.

Why did they ask for identification? Usually when you open a hosting account (even a VPS) you only need to give your credit card number so they can get paid, and name, etc... but they don't usually verify, except maybe for email!

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#10 August 19 2013

mmk92
Member

Re: Web Hosting and Domain Registration

Not only did they ask for the identification, but the suspended every single service I got from them without prior notice, not a very good first impression from them.

They said I need to call them via Skype to "finalize some details", do you think I should work into fixing this issue or should I change hosts all together?

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#11 August 20 2013

rolf
Member

Re: Web Hosting and Domain Registration

mmk92 wrote:

They said I need to call them via Skype to "finalize some details", do you think I should work into fixing this issue or should I change hosts all together?

If possible, yes change hosts, but try to understand why it happened, as this is not normal, and maybe there is a reason you need to know about.

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#12 August 21 2013

mmk92
Member

Re: Web Hosting and Domain Registration

It was very odd, I asked but they wouldn't explain to me why. I ended up going for Dreamhost, i used a coupon from lifehacker.com which cuts the cost of the yearly subscription by a 100$. So now I am paying 20$ for my first year of hosting, and they also give you a 2 week trial prior to your purchase.

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#13 August 22 2013

rolf
Member

Re: Web Hosting and Domain Registration

mmk92 wrote:

It was very odd, I asked but they wouldn't explain to me why. I ended up going for Dreamhost, i used a coupon from lifehacker.com which cuts the cost of the yearly subscription by a 100$. So now I am paying 20$ for my first year of hosting, and they also give you a 2 week trial prior to your purchase.

$120 a year is somewhat expensive for shared hosting. Average subscription would be around $5/month, or maybe up to $7... but $10 is the price they would charge like 8 years ago.
But as long as it's good!

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#14 August 22 2013

mmk92
Member

Re: Web Hosting and Domain Registration

Yea I am aware of that, but other decent web hosts charge around 6-7$ for 12 or 24 months all prepaid at once, so that adds up to $80 upfront that I wasn't willing to pay for the time being. I found the discount to $20 for the first year reasonable, and gonna let my future self deal with the hassle of renewing the account in the future. So far their service has been quiet good, way better than hostgator, and their policies are far more superior. Hostgator didn't deserve that 1 cent I gave them for what they did.

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