Thread: Website registration

I am ignorant to the ways of the "internets." I'd like to register a couple of domain names and would appreciate some advice please.

Is there anything wrong with registering with GoDaddy or some other service simply find off of a google search? Does registering via a particular source lock you into some sort of commitment of web hosting (and trust me I barely know what that entails) through them or can I register through them and then do whatever else I need to do, whatever that is, elsewhere?

My most basic question for now is, assuming that I want to set up a couple of web based businesses, what is the best way to simply register the domain names?

Less critical now but more so soon, what is the best way to get help with setting up web pages? I realize I could probably figure out a basic one on my own but my job hunting and other commitments are more of a priority at the moment so I at least need to find someone in an advisory capacity.

I'd appreciate any advice that can be offered. I really know nothing about this stuff.

Dave and I use godaddy. The purchase of a domain name does in no way tie you to that particular registrar. Using godaddy, you can check the availability of your desired domain(s) and register them all at once. And from there you have an easy overview of the domains you own, and you can point the DNS servers to any place you want. Usually these are the servers of the hosting provider that hosts your domains.

I have used godaddy in the past. I am currently using 1&1, they had the cheapest domain registration rates at the time.

You are not locked into hosting. If a company tries to force you to buy a hosting package with your domain registration, tell them to DIAF.

Originally Posted by Utopian

I am ignorant to the ways of the "internets." I'd like to register a couple of domain names and would appreciate some advice please.

Is there anything wrong with registering with GoDaddy or some other service simply find off of a google search? Does registering via a particular source lock you into some sort of commitment of web hosting (and trust me I barely know what that entails) through them or can I register through them and then do whatever else I need to do, whatever that is, elsewhere?

My most basic question for now is, assuming that I want to set up a couple of web based businesses, what is the best way to simply register the domain names?

Less critical now but more so soon, what is the best way to get help with setting up web pages? I realize I could probably figure out a basic one on my own but my job hunting and other commitments are more of a priority at the moment so I at least need to find someone in an advisory capacity.

I'd appreciate any advice that can be offered. I really know nothing about this stuff.

+1 on above. I use GoDaddy personally and we use them for our corporate domain names.

Registering the domain names is the easy and inexpensive part. It's the webhosting that will cost the money, if needed.

EDIT: I don't have much experience with hosting companies, but I went with Bluehost for my personal site and have been happy with their services.

Since domain name registration is cheap a lot of companies would give it as a freebie if you purchase hosting with them.

There's nothing wrong to have them separate though, but then you'll have to manage them from separate places (may be separate interfaces even if from the same company). There's not much to change with the DNS though, you'll have to pay the bill not too late (they'll allow you few months) and if your hosting IP changes (really shouldn't) you'll have to update the domain name (that would normally be taken care if you have them at the same place).

I've used several hostings and I am not happy enough with any of them to recommend them.

As far as setting up web pages, the best is probably to get a CMS software with a decent skin. Wordpress or Drupal with an appropriate skin could do well. Last time I looked into it few years ago I liked texpattern.
If you go that route you'll probably notice that the vast majority of skins are for blogs, but there should be more than enough for business sites. The software is generally free, if you don't find a free skin you like there are certainly a lot of paid ones.

Originally Posted by gugi

Since domain name registration is cheap a lot of companies would give it as a freebie if you purchase hosting with them.

There's nothing wrong to have them separate though, but then you'll have to manage them from separate places (may be separate interfaces even if from the same company). There's not much to change with the DNS though, you'll have to pay the bill not too late (they'll allow you few months) and if your hosting IP changes (really shouldn't) you'll have to update the domain name (that would normally be taken care if you have them at the same place).

I've used several hostings and I am not happy enough with any of them to recommend them.

As far as setting up web pages, the best is probably to get a CMS software with a decent skin. Wordpress or Drupal with an appropriate skin could do well. Last time I looked into it few years ago I liked texpattern.
If you go that route you'll probably notice that the vast majority of skins are for blogs, but there should be more than enough for business sites. The software is generally free, if you don't find a free skin you like there are certainly a lot of paid ones.

I'm so over my head here.
What is DNS?
What is CMS?
What is a skin?

Clearly I need to hire a 17 year old kid to help me with this!

The thing you need to look for with these shared hosting providers if you use something like wordpress or drupal. Their shared mysql is way oversold.

I think if you hit drupals site, they recommend some hosts.

Originally Posted by gugi

Since domain name registration is cheap a lot of companies would give it as a freebie if you purchase hosting with them.

There's nothing wrong to have them separate though, but then you'll have to manage them from separate places (may be separate interfaces even if from the same company). There's not much to change with the DNS though, you'll have to pay the bill not too late (they'll allow you few months) and if your hosting IP changes (really shouldn't) you'll have to update the domain name (that would normally be taken care if you have them at the same place).

I've used several hostings and I am not happy enough with any of them to recommend them.

As far as setting up web pages, the best is probably to get a CMS software with a decent skin. Wordpress or Drupal with an appropriate skin could do well. Last time I looked into it few years ago I liked texpattern.
If you go that route you'll probably notice that the vast majority of skins are for blogs, but there should be more than enough for business sites. The software is generally free, if you don't find a free skin you like there are certainly a lot of paid ones.

Originally Posted by Utopian

I'm so over my head here.
What is DNS? Domain Name System, this is the mapping between domain names that people like and IP addresses that computers like.

What is CMS? Content Management System, this is basically a generator of the HTML pages based on rules that you specify. It separates the content from the layout which is rather nice. Instead of writing a static HTML pages, typically the information lives in a database and the HTML code is generated automatically. So if you have 5, 20, 100 etc. pages they all can share the same rules of how to be generated and the whole website will have common feel. When you want to make changes to the content the new stuff will automatically look the same. And since as much as possible is shared and automatically generated, your site is a lot more robust for stuff like broken links, than if you would have to have to update every thing by hand.

What is a skin? That's the layout template which organizes the information. For example if you go to NYT.com you'll see a lot of stuff organized in columns, blocks, categories and what not. If you use the firefox browser go to View->PageStyle and select 'No Style', you will see all the same information but without the skin that does the layout.
If you want to see how the exact same thing can look completely different by just changing the skin take a look at css Zen Garden: The Beauty in CSS Design

Clearly I need to hire a 17 year old kid to help me with this!

The above things are only first approximation correct, just so that you get a general idea of what's what. Not sure if you've used LaTeX, but HTML is pretty much the same, it's a markup language. A CMS is just one more layer to keep the markup separate from the content and automate more of the process.
Like on SRP you don't have to write a whole new HTML page every time you post, you simply have an interface where you add the content, the CMS sticks it in the database with the appropriate tags and then the webpages get automatically generated with the correct layout and the uptodate information according to the rules that are set.

Check out WordPress. It's pretty simple to manage/use and most hosting companies have a nice little plugin that will allow you to install it through the host, without having to know much about the installation. Quite nice for people just starting out.