or, the adventures of a new kid in cyberspace
website design & webmaster resources
for the e-business beginner
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wannabe webster or, the adventures of a new kid in cyberspace website design & webmaster resources for the e-business beginner | trapped in a frame?
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Domain names, registration how-to
Once you decide on a direction with regard to what products and/or affiliations you intend to present and profit from, you have a direction for the authoring of your website. If you haven't done it already, you need to decide on a domain name. You need to register it and you need to secure a host to host your site. The "host" is the server where your website files reside. You really do need to get a domain name in order to look professional. The alternative is to have a very amateur-like address (e.g., www.buffalo.com/~elmer/website/page.html). Note: Prices of domain name registration can range from as little as $20 to as much as $80 -- that's the price to have your name associated with the name as owner. I don't know of any difference between the registration via the expensive versus the cheaper. It seems that you're registered either way. Picking a domain name that includes your basic key words Again and again I heard that it is really good to have your key keywords in your domain name. Then I decided I needed to register a cheap ($35/yr) site that could focus on one aspect of my sales (a hypnosis tape for dieting & eating problems). For a site focused on losing weight using a hypnosis tape, I thought the key keywords would probably be "lose weight" and "hypnosis". I registered www.lose-weight-hypnosis.com and put up a few pages focused on the hypnosis tape and dieting in general. A week after uploading the three pages onto the internet and placing links on my other site's links pages, I was astonished to stumble across the site at #15 position on a search engine (the search engine I was using to check how much competition there was using those three keywords). That's number 15 of 43,200 sites that the search engine offered to me -- in one week. (I was thinking it would take a good 6 to 18 months to accomplish that ranking -- and only after a lot of work gathering a few hundred reciprocal links.) Is a particular domain name available?
 Register.com
There are many website hosting services. Some may be setup for ecommerce and the bells and whistles you might want. Others may not be. There are a number of things you might want to take into consideration.
when you register, do you own? Before you pick a domain name registration service to register your domain name, be aware that there are some places registering domain names that keep the ownership themselves -- read the fine print in the agreement and/or ask. Some servers routinely register themselves as registrant and contact so that they get the important set-up information but will have no problems with changing the info to your name. Other domain registrars may keep ownership as a policy. Think about who you want to be the registered owner if your web site becomes successful and your domain name becomes a household word. If you've actually only rented your domain name, you could be in for trouble. (read more.) Once you're registered, you can check the official information on your site by simply returning to one of the domain name registration sites and checking your domain name in their search engine (the one intended for you to see if a domain name you want is available). The results will tell you that you can't have that name because it's already registered and will offer to give you the information on who it's registered to. Click on that and see if it's you. (You can use iGoldrush's system, for example. Plug in your domain name and do a search. When you get the results, click on the little blue Intel "i" next to your domain name and you'll get the results. The first name on top of the results you get labeled "Registrant" is the documented owner of the domain name. Print this information out and keep it handy.) dot somethings. There are a growing number of sites and a growing number of "dot-somethings" coming out to handle the overload from dot-coms. Take a look at Enom, NewDomains.net, .FM
and .TV.
website hosting for ecommerce Many website hosting services advertize that they are especially interested in hosting ecommerce sites. Some have their own built-in shopping cart services and many have extensive statistics and tracking services that are designed to help the webmaster keep track of where visitors are coming from, looking at and interested in. When you sign up a domain name it takes anywhere from 1 to 3 business days after sign-up before you can use it. Transfering a domain name to another webhost usually takes about 1 to 2 business days before you can use it. |
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Hosting services ranked from least expensive to most: Some will be a bit cheaper if you pay up front for several months or for several domains. Mister.Net free setup $35 per year for both domain name registration and hosting 
How little can you setup, register and host for a year? - $35
free setup ("for a limited time") $20 per year for domain name registration $5 per month for hosting How little can you setup, register and host for a year? - $80 Absolutus.com free setup $? per year for domain name $7 per month for hosting 
How little can you setup, register and host for a year? - $84 FreeHostingWeb.com $50 setup (4 domains setup - $150) no fee for domain name registration 1st year $35 per year for domain name subsequent years no fee for hosting How little can you setup, register and host for a year? - $85 IPowerWeb.com free setup $20 per year for domain registration $8 per month for hosting How little can you setup, register and host for a year? - $95 DotServant.com $15 setup $15 per year for domain name registration $6 per month for hosting 
How little can you setup, register and host for a year? - $102 PowWeb.com free setup $15 per year for domain name registration $8 per months for hosting How little can you setup, register and host for a year? - $111 |
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WRC-UK.com $15 (£ 10) setup $15 (£ 10) per year for domain name registration $7.50 (£ 5) per month for hosting How little can you setup, register and host for a year? - $120 |
$30 setup $20 per year for domain registration $9 per month for hosting How little can you setup, register and host for a year? - $158 Register.com $40 setup $30 per year for domain registration $9 per month for hosting How little can you setup, register and host for a year? - $178 WebsiteHosting.net free setup free domain name registration $180 per year for hosting
How little can you setup, register and host for a year? - $180 Dotster.com $0 setup till 6.1.02 $14 per year for domain name registration $14 per month for hosting  How little can you setup, register and host for a year? - $182 |
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Jumpline.com $20 setup $17 per year for domain registration $15 per month for hosting  How little can you setup, register and host for a year? - $217 OCWebdesign free setup $15 per year for domain name registration $20 per month for hosting How little can you setup, register and host for a year? - $255 Earthlink $25 setup $20 per year for domain name registration $20 per month for hosting 
How little can you setup, register and host for a year? - $265 ApolloHosting.com $10 setup $15 per year for domain name registration $20 per month for hosting How little can you setup, register and host for a year? - $275 |
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Affinity.com $50 setup $10 per year for domain name registration $20 per month for hosting  How little can you setup, register and host for a year? - $300 AdGrafix.com / Hosting.com $49 setup $15 per year for domain name registration $20 per month for hosting How little can you setup, register and host for a year? - $304 |
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Price vs. Support - Example Adventures in Low Cost Web Hosting There is a time-honored expression that you get what you pay for. In the case of web hosting this translates into a correlation between higher cost and both easier to access support and higher reliability of services. Below are some anecdotes about support. iPowerWeb.com ($95 per year) - In early 2002, I decided to try iPowerWeb.com to register and host a domain. I chose them because they were reviewed very favorably by many reviewers and in my explorations I never saw any negative comment about them. There was no problem accepting my money and sending a confirmation email but nothing after that seemed to work. Being used to instant results and tech support that is available at least during business hours, I got increasingly frustrated when I could not connect with them either by phone or email over two days. [I was under a bit of a time crunch and had made the mistake of thinking I should be able to expect the easy contacts, immediate answers and personalized interactions I get with the hosting company I use for my two primary sites (cost about $390/year). I finally called sales (technical support never answered the phone and never returned emails). This all had me feeling a lot of pressure and panic.] When I decided I needed to change to a much more expensive but tried and true service, I spent hours trying to contact someone to cancel my order and get a refund. When finally reached, they kindly advised me that they would help me transfer my domain (no refunds on domain name registration) and did accomplish that, taking just a few minutes less than 48 hours. The refund, however, took a month -- three weeks after a second email reminder.
Your-Site.com ($80 per year) - After my iPower.com experience, and after elsewhere setting up the site I had wanted to host with them, I decided I should really try another low-cost service to see what I really should be expecting. The site I had tried to set up with iPower.com was a site important to a good friend and there had been some panic about getting it up as soon as possible. To test other services, I set up three sites that I'd been planning (three sites I could be more laid back about getting going) with Your-Site.com. Your-Site.com set my three sites up and had fairly easy to understand instructions to me in a little more than a day. Everything went well and without glitch until about a month later when they sent me an email saying they needed to make a small change in the email system. They gave me several days warning that I would need to change my email setup in my browser in order to access my email -- basically only amounting to a need to change my user name and my password for accessing -- but then took two weeks actually getting this to happen. My emails asking for clarification about some of the details went unanswered but after several days waiting I just called and got immediate tech support (easy to find contact info on the site included a phone number for tech support -- not toll free and only available during business hours).
Mister.net ($35 per year) - After my iPower.com experience I was very hesitant to try even a cheaper service. However, I did try Mister.net for some spin-off sites -- sites focused on a particular aspect of what my main site was selling. The Mister.net people have been personable in some of their emails and have made me feel that they take pride in being responsive. The only trade-offs so far have been minor. I had to give up the ability to use the site address as my email address because I couldn't get my email automatically forwarded to one of the two email accounts I regularly check throughout each. But I value being listened to and responded WAY above email forwarding, so that has been tolerable. The only other little glitches have been recently when I registered sites but didn't get the site information until I emailed them and asked for it. It's no big deal, of course, to have to email a reminder to someone who is quick to respond. The worry is just that oversights in one area might relfect an over-all condition of being overwhelmed (e.g., having possibly bit off more than they can chew). As of now (05/03), I intend to just keep track of the service overall to see if their glitches are going to increase, decrease or cycle in frequency -- and if the glitches come and go I'm going to try to keep track of how often they return and for how long. Their very attractive price of $35 per year makes it a serious player in the competition for my business -- even if they have a lot of glitches -- as long as they remain personable and reachable ) -- though maybe the reliability of the site should be monitored if you have a site with them that puts food on your table). |
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further reading on Domain registration. For a lot of information about domain names registrations, there is a richly informative page on the Internet Goldrush site -- Domain Name News and Information. Free websites There are many free websites available. You trade information or put up with advertising banners and they give you a domain name (or almost) and space to build a webpage. The gist of the information I have found is that some search engines don't take some free sites seriously and may not even bother listing your site. This is especially likely if the free site keeps your site in a frame. Ecommerce can be very difficult, too, because many of the affiliate management programs do not accept you as a seller, either, if you have a free website. Note: Recommendations on this or any other page on my websites are candidly made on the basis of what I really believe, but keep in mind I'm not suggesting I'm all-Knowing and I'm offering no guarantees or warrantees. To be open and above board, a graphic ad or a little blinking star indicates services or products from sites that will pay me a commission if you purchase something -- if you arrive on their website from this website.
- g. johnson |
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