Hi All,
My boyfriend and I were talking about starting up a website for our family/friends who are curious about what we are doing up here in Alaska(pics,info etc.-just for fun). Anyway, while searching on godaddy.com for a domain name(the first domain website we pulled up on google) we started wondering how the whole domain name claim system works? Why do we have to register and pay a fee to sites like godaddy.com? How does the whole system work? Are there any sites for starting one up that would be recommended (especially for people that right now don’t know much about creating a website but may know more later…).
Any help/advice would be appreciated-don’t really know how the whole system works!
Jade
Meh domain names I have two but shut both of them down because I lost interest in web design haha.
Well, I purchased one through Go Daddy and one through Geocities. With Geocities, you sign up for the Plus? Pro? Plan and you pay basically $9 a month for hosting and you get the domain name free with that. But I didn’t want to pay that much so (eh I’m going to confuse the hell out of you) I bought a reseller (Resellers are basically that you have your site on a reseller and you can host subdomains and domains on your account… but just forget about that you don’t HAVE to do that to have a reseller). My reseller plan is $5 a month (resellerzoom.com)
For just starting out and really wanting a domain name, I would suggest Geocities. Although a little pricey (comes out to basically $108 a year and then you have to renew your domain name the next year with them) it offers templates and a customized blog to start off with.
Howevahhhh if you buy a domain name (from Go Daddy or somewhere), I’ll host you on my domain so you guys only have to pay the annual fee of renewing the domain name and don’t have to worry about a monthly hosting bill =)
/Side note/
ALASKA!? Pshaw! I want to go to Alaska!
I would recommend DirectNIC…they charge $15 to register a domain, and (I believe) offer 20MB of free hosting with it (which is plenty of space for basic sites without a lot of big images/files). The only catch to that is that there’re banner ads on the page, but if you don’t mind that, it’s nice and low cost. They also have paid hosting with no ads which are $4/mo and up. And, if you’re new to website building, they’ve got Geocities-like options for creating your site by just clicking on stuff (and not needing to know HTML).
The reason you have to pay for domain names is because they’re a commodity. ;-) Two sites can’t both use the domain www.finalfurlong.org, so therefore it’s a limited resource, and worth money. Once you pay someone (like GoDaddy or DirectNIC) to register the domain, your information gets filed for that domain name so that no one else can use it. (For the span of a year unless you renew, of course.)
I don’t know how much you want to spend, but I can say nothing but good things about my Web host, InMotion Hosting. I think I pay around $60/year all told, that includes my space, domain name, and some extra security features (they don’t list my personal information anywhere on the Web; no one can search my domain name and find out things about me). I’ve found them to be extremely helpful, friendly on the phone when my dad or I has a question about our websites, and very quick to respond. Great for someone like me, just starting out with the whole web-space thing.
There are also free options for hosting stuff with your own personal domain name.
My husband and I use a program called WordPress for almost all of our blogging/picture gallery type needs. wordpress.org/hosting/ They have a free option with pre-installed templates and stuff for starting out, and they’re fairly easy to customize to what you want as you get braver with info.
The nice thing about WordPress (and other blogging type softwares) is that they’ll let users leave comments on your posts so your various family members can go “Aww man, I’m so jealous” (or various FF members can do the same thing ).
I’m not a big fan of it myself (because it doesn’t allow me to put it in an iframe and look nice), but my friend loves it to pieces and has had her WP site for almost three years now.
Hey guys!
Thanks so much for all the info!!! Totally appreciate it, we just need to sort through all the info and check each one out to figure out which is best for us, so far I’m leaning towards WordPress(FREE YAY!) and DirectNic(CHEAP! YAY!) Both sound like website design dummy’s like us can still do alright with them, if this site ever actually happens this summer I’ll be sure to share…just don’t make fun of it !
Be prepared for more questions later… and thanks again!
Yup, Alaska, its awesome if you’re an outdoors person, even if you aren’t a few days here just looking at the scenery is just breathtaking. Lately the tourists off the cruise ships have been invading Anchorage, which is pretty amusing. Never lived anywhere that gets tourists! When this site gets up(notice I said WHEN, not IF ) I’ll post some pics!
I was flipping through our giant college book down in guidance with over 2,000 colleges and I was looking at Alaska and I thought “Maybe I could visit Jade!!!”
But I’m not going to college, so I’m not even sure why I was looking… lol Well, maybe sometime I’ll go. But not when I graduate HS lol.
lol, its definitly an interesting place but somehow I can’t even get family to visit, its like “oooh Alaska, maybe someday…” maybe they think I live in an igloo or something…no seriously, people are shocked when I show the pics of downtown with a skyline, I’m like, uh, its a city of 300,000, why wouldn’t it have big buildings? lol
Too bad you’re not going to college, I hope you do go someday though!
I have two but shut both of them down because I lost interest in web design haha.
They also have paid hosting with no ads which are $4/mo and up. And, if you’re new to website building, they’ve got Geocities-like options for creating your site by just clicking on stuff (and not needing to know HTML).
!