Domain Name register....

[eclipse525]

Does it make a difference where you register your Domain Name? Are some places cheaper than others or are others more realible? Not sure, thanks?

Also, do hosting companies take care of registering your Domain Name when you sign up with them?

How would you recommend going through this proceedure? Curious.

Thanks!

~e

[edesignuk]

GoDaddy.com (www.godaddy.com) + A Small Orange (http://www.asmallorange.com/services/hosting/?refer=yo-momma.net) = WIN!

[alexf]

godaddy.com is good, but they throw a lot of advertising at you.

I have been happy with them, and the price is certainly right.

[mjlizzad]

It does make some difference. There are really two issues involving registering a domain name. 1 - the actual registration and 2 DNS. Any company can handle the registration itself; it's a pretty simple process. You want to make sure that if you use a cheaper registration company that YOU own the domain you register. Some of the shady companies actually own the name you register which becomes an issue when you want to change companies later on. They will charge you to "buy" the domain name.

The second issue is DNS. Most registration companies will provide DNS servers. DNS handles resolving the domain name (macrumors.com) to an IP address. DNS also handles MX records - the IP address of the mailserver(s) for a domain. If your hosting company is different than your registration one, you may use either DNS server - or even your own.

Checklist: Do you own the domain with cheap firm? Do they provide DNS server(s)?

I personally use register.com for my personal domain. They are not the cheapest but I have never had an issue with their DNS. I would personally go with a "blue chip" registration company - for me it isn't worth hassel.

Many hosting companies will offer free/cheap registration of a domain name. MAKE SURE YOU OWN THAT NAME or you're stuck with them.

Research hosting companies - one place to look http://uptime.netcraft.com/perf/reports/Hosters
Hosting really depends on your needs: Do you need SSH access or just some place to put static pages up, or something in between?

[eclipse525]

Thanks for all the input. Has anyone heard of Network Solutions (http://www.networksolutions.com)? This one was recommended to me recently.

I'll check out that Hosting list link. Thank you.

~e

[blodwyn]

I've used dollarhost (http://www.dollarhost.com) for the last 3-4 years to register and host several websites. They've been very reliable and are priced competitively.

[atari1356]

I highly recommend VizaWeb Hosting (http://www.vizaweb.com/). The domain name registration is free if you sign up for a year of service... and the price is great for what you get, and it's been very reliable.

(no affiliation, just a happy customer, yada yada)

[Stampyhead]

Network Solutions has been around for a while, they are the first company to offer domain name registration. I would avoid them, though. Their prices are not competitive and they are difficult to work with. As has been mentioned before, Go Daddy is a good solid company and they have great prices. I have registered many domains with them over the years and they have always been good. I can't recommend them for hosting, though. They have their network tied down pretty tightly and they restrict a lot of different PHP and MySQL functions on their servers. If you are just hosting basic HTML pages they are fine, but working with them when using dynamic pages can be frustrating. I use www.freewebhost.com and they are pretty good.

[JFreak]

how about www.joker.com - can you find a place that would actually be cheaper?

[eclipse525]

A lot of these cheaper hosting sites seem great as far as price but are they realible? At the moment, my site will be simple but eventually I know that it will evolve to be a little more involved. It's funny i have all the above mentioned hosting companies up side by side. It's so confusing. Many have great prices and seem similar in many respects. How to choose. Another recommendation was HostOny (http://www.hostony.com/hosting.html), has anyone worked or heard of them?

Thanks for all the help.

~e