Newbie question: What's the best way to go about registering a domain name?

[swindmill]

I would like to register a particular domain name and eventually build a web page, but I am completely new to this. Could anyone give a quick explanation of what I need to do, or direct me to a good resource? I don't want to Google and then guess as to what's a good idea and what's not. Thanks.

[wordmunger]

You could do worse than GoDaddy.com, which is advertised on this page. You need to register the domain name there, which gives you the right to use the name. Then you'll need somewhere to host your site. GoDaddy will do it for you (for an extra charge), or you can use a separate hosting service. Sometimes your ISP gives you free web space, and you can redirect the URL from GoDaddy to this address as well.

Personally I use Opensourcehost.com, but many people on MR swear by A Small Orange.

Good luck!

[swindmill]

thanks for the info. I checked out my ISP and it does offer personal web page service. It's a good place to start anyways. Are there any good resources out there to get me started with publishing to the site? My ISP offers some generic publishing help, but I'd like to do it without the use of generic templates, etc.

[ham_man]

Personally I use Opensourcehost.com, but many people on MR swear by A Small Orange.
I do...:D

I just registered my domain for $10 when I bought some hosting there. Really easy and pain free...:)

[wordmunger]

Well, most people use Dreamweaver/Fireworks for web sites. If that's a little pricey for you, you can just use the free composer that comes with Mozilla.

[macbaseball]

Well, most people use Dreamweaver/Fireworks for web sites. If that's a little pricey for you, you can just use the free composer that comes with Mozilla.

You could also use Nvu (http://www.nvu.com/download.html), which is actually pretty good for it's price. (Free)

[swindmill]

EDIT /figured it out