Registering a Domain

I got mine at GoDaddy. It's kind of the Wal-Mart of domains lol.

The first thing I want to warn you about is, DON'T use the search there or at any other domain registration site to see if your domain name is available -- unless you are ready to finish the deal in five minutes. If you search, find that it is available, and put off the purchase, it will no longer be available. Any name that is searched is deemed of value by the sharks that watch over such things. There are pigs who buy them up and -- well, never mind the details, just don't wave it around like raw meat in front of starving wolves.

Don't be in a hurry, do some research about domain issues and make a list of possible alternate names. You may need variations with dashes or underscores or slightly different spelling. No spaces or any punctuation! Then you will be ready to do it without fatal hesitation.

Don't set your heart on .com; there are so many of them that now it is common for .org or several new ones to be more available.

Look over all the possibilities, Google up info on problems people may have had with anything that looks too good (keywords like ~ "SuperRegistrar sucks").

Don't get your domain in a package deal with a webhost! Keep domain ownership separate, or you may find that you don't really own the domain. The domain should be yours forever, while hosting is a movable feast.

Don't use Network Solutions.

I've used just15bucks without problems.

Make sure your name is in the contact field for owner, admin, technical contact.

katiemac said:

And sorry, Lisa, but I can't seem to find just15bucks? Is it a .com?

Click to expand...

https://www.securepaynet.net/default.aspx?prog_id=just15buckdomains

To continue this discussion:

Once you've bought your domain name, how do you find a reasonable webhost? I'm thinking of developing one of my blogs into a fully-fledged website (10,000 hits a month! hurrah!) but don't have the faintest clue how to proceed.

I recommend (use myself and for my website clients):

GoDaddy.com

LAMPhost.net

I use GoDaddy.com to register/maintain my domain name, but I use DreamHost to actually host the thing. GoDaddy.com is so full of ads that I don't want to deal with them any more that once every couple of years when I need to renew my domain, and I've had very good experience with DreamHost. (I used to use IPowerWeb, which was a big mess, although it's been several years since I used them, so maybe they've improved since then.)

If you're using a blog, you may want to consider if you need to move it to its own domain name at all. Many high-traffic sites are blogs that are hosted right on Blogger or WordPress. Dreamhost allows you to install a WordPress blog on your site pretty easily, but you can't connect to other Wordpress blogs like you can within the WordPress community. (Or if you can, I have yet to figure out how to do it.)

Hope this helps.

I use GoDaddy for domains and hosting. And for the most part, have enjoyed their service; too many ads on their site like Katrina says - but I use an FTP program (Filezilla) to add and delete my files, therefore I virtually never have to go on their site to manage hosting.

I use DomainDiscover for domain registration ($11) and Webhost4life.com for website hosting ($4.95/month for their basic plan).

Does anyone have any experience with SiteGround for ftp/webhosting? I need an FTP for the new site I'm building (first timer) and their deal looks, quite frankly, too good to be true...

http://www.siteground.com/ftp-hosting.htm

Any insight would be appreciated!

Also, I see a couple of you have mentioned that it's a good idea to buy your domain name separately (I have, it's previously purchased from Godaddy) but why is this a good thing?

Thanks!

Recommend strongly against GoDaddy. (The look of the site should be warning enough)

Your domain ownership is an extremely valuable property, and very difficult to correct if things go wrong. You can have a site that nobody can get to and be unable to contact the registrar to change that, if you want a nightmare scenario that has happened to many people.

GoDaddy has actually engaged in theft of domains. Google "godaddy scandal" for voluminous reports.

It's good to have separate registration and hosting in case there is a failure. What if the company goes broke? This has happened. What do you do then? You can get a new host and upload your files, but how will you direct your URL to it?

If something happens to your host, you can just get a new host and change your target addresses. If your registrar fails, you're in trouble, but at least you can direct people to your site using the absolute numbers. If both blink out at once, what are you going to do?

GoDaddy has actually engaged in theft of domains. Google "godaddy scandal" for voluminous reports.

It's good to have separate registration and hosting in case there is a failure. What if the company goes broke? This has happened. What do you do then? You can get a new host and upload your files, but how will you direct your URL to it?

Click to expand...

I have heard horror stories about GoDaddy as well (after I purchased my domain name of course).

Would you recommend moving my domain name to a new registrar? I'm not even sure how to do that. Do you have anyone you'd recommend transferring it to?

Personally, I use register.com and have since around 1998 or so. I've used hurricane electric (he.net) for my web services since about 1996, but they are a self-serve company, so you have to know at least a little bit about what you're doing to use them.