Munku

Well I'm considering starting a website, and I would like to know a few things. I know a bit of html and the basics to making a site having done it a lot in my early days using free hosts such as angelfire and tripod.

Now I would like something a bit more profession with a .com address. My first question is, do you register a provider first, or the domain name? I really dont know how this sort of thing works. If someone could lay it out for me that'd be great.

Also, is GoDaddy.com worth checking into? They have a 1 month plan for like 3.95 which gives me 200 GB Transfer and 4 Gigs of diskspace. Both of which I believe to be far more than I need.

Thanks in advance guys!

Lasereth

My mom and uncle both have their websites' domains registered with GoDaddy.com. Their bandwidth and hosting plans are setup there as well. It's cheap, reliable webhosting/registration. I definitely recommend it.

You can get the website hosting and domain name with different companies if ya want but GoDaddy.com offers both. Doesn't really matter when you get which, but you have to have both in order to make a website work.

-Lasereth

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Munku

One thing I never did understand, if you register a name with one company, and get hosting with another, how do you link the two together to use that name with that host?

cyrnel

It's easy to get started buying domains and services from the same company but try to keep them separated. Hosting plans vary like snowflakes and you could easily find yourself switching. If you have domain and services from the same company it can be messy to separate later. Somewhat like having your email address stuck at AOL. (admittedly a severe example)

Domain registrations are nothing but an entry for your domain name in the master registry pointing to nameservers that know where your stuff lives. The nameservers associate the names of your services (web, mail, ftp, etc.) with the IP addresses of your site.

Example:
1) You register your domain "me.com" with BigRegistrarInc. They stick it in the big list of domains in the sky. Kind of a DMV. They'll want to know where to point it (nameservers), but you don't know yet.

2) You know you want web and mail hosting, and find a good deal with the things you need from BigHostCo. They provide systems with disk space for your site, mail, etc. They also (almost always) provide nameservers that associate the names (www,ftp,mail.me.com) with the actual computers hosting your services. They'll tell you the nameserver addresses and give you all the login info to manage your site.

3) Now you tell BigRegistrarInc the nameserver addresses for your site at BigHostCo and they link them to your domain in the root servers.

4) When someone types "me.com" into their browser, their browser asks their computer which asks their nameserver which inquires as far as the root servers which know to ask BigHostCo's nameserver which finally directs user to the box(es) housing your stuff.

Make sense? It's late...

Questions for domain registrar:
Annual cost (and multi-year discounts), do they provide shielded whois responses, what domain transfer security do they provide, how do you manage your contact & billing info, and can you control nameservers yourself, etc.

Questions for hosting co:
Evaluate their connection vs you vs your customers, Disk space limits, overcharges, monthly transfer allowance, overcharges, nameservers included, allow multi-domain to same site (me.com, me.org), extra charges, terms of service, read it read it read it, webmail, cgi, telnet, ad infinitum.

No provider is perfect and your selection can't help but be a best effort thing. Expect to come at it differently the 2nd time.

Latch

Great post, cyrnel.

I'll back up other people with buying domains through GoDaddy.. very good! Don't know about their hosting, though.

bendsley

This probably won't be relevant here, but if you ever have to register a lot of domains for cheap, try BulkRegister.com. There is an up-front fee that you pay, and then each domain afterwards is something between $9-18 depending on how much up-front fee you paid.

Here is a list of worldwide ICANN registrars.
http://www.internic.net/alpha.html

__________________
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Munku

So if when you register a domain it registers through a main listing, why can't I bypass these registering companies and register it with the main listing myself? Are these companies not just a throughway to do it for you?

cyrnel

In the scheme of things, yes. If you're doing less than 100/month just shop for the best price, perhaps with a bulk discount, and make sure their management features match your needs.

Becoming a registrar involves a considerable investment of time, effort, and a chunk of capital. You could become a reseller for an existing registrar but you'll notice commitment levels mean significant effort on your part before you'll see any benefit.

Where do you want to spend your time?