Help!- IT advice needed on domain name and host for website – please

I posted recently, my interest in setting up a website :

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/helpadvice-needed-on-setting-up-a-website.

I've decided to do it myself and to use one and one as the domain host. Firstly, has anyone ever used them and what are they like?

Secondly, they offer a number of different packages and I'm a little undecided as to whether I should go for; the basic package, which works out at £2.49 for a trial six-month period and then increases to £4.99 month from then on; the next package which includes 3 free domains at £3.99 per month and then £8.99 from then on.

The attraction in the second package, is that I get another 2 domain names free. I've thought of a domain name for my website, which if it works, would logically lead on to another domain. I could get around this by combining the two names into one website or register both names now.

I'm not sure whether to go for the more expensive package given I've no experience of designing websites, and this idea may not ever take off. Approximately the first package costs approximately £60/year, and the second package costs £108/year.

Not sure anyone will answer this post but any help will be much appreciated in helping me decide.

make your own and if you can't, then learn. buy a template and sit in a room for a week with a copy of dreamweaver installed on your PC

Buy domain from get dotted and host of freeola for nowt/ year. Never had a problem but you have to upload via their phone number at 1p / minute. most normal sized sites take 30 – 40 minutes to upload!

That's what i did and still do.

Since taking the plunge to do it myself, I now have little fear and have made my own flash based site (all be it from a template) and numerous HTML sites. Some from Serif web plus and more recently with dreamweaver. 'spose the pro's will slag me off but, like I say, its costs me next to nothing.

Latest creation here, for a mate of mine. It took about 40 hours but would have taken less if I'd have known what I was doing. Domain cost under £20 for 2 years hosting costs £ZERO / year.

Slightly unfortunate about the quote of the day script as Adolf Hitler sometimes appears! oh well, what does he expect for nothing. 😀

Luke
the site looks great, although not sure about the quote from AH!!
I was going to use wordpress to construct the site – not sure I'm capable of learning dreamweaver in a year let alone a week!
Are those domain name providers and hosts safe, secure etc??

Why not take a look at 123-reg.co.uk. Their basic hosting package is only 2.49 a month, so less than 30 quid for the year. The domain names are cheap too.

Hitman, I've been using get dotted for my domains and Freeola for hosting (they are sort of related) for about 7 years. No problems as far as I am concerned. When i did have to speak to someone the phone was answered by someone who knew what they were talking about and sorted my issue out but it was that long ago, i can't even remember what it was…

I don't see why you should pay for hosting while it can be hosted for free.

My photography site is there and has been with them in various forms for 7 years.

The only pitfall is uploading as you either need their broadband or use their local rate number to dial up to upload. The wedding site took about 30 minutes from memory to upload. The cygnet one took 45 or 50 minutes because I couldn't be arsed to getting the pictures as small as I could without loosing quality so they are all a bit large for tinterweb.

I can't recommend them enough to be honest.

Luke
Do you think its worthy spending time learning dreamweaver rather than wordpress given that my website is going to be content rather than design driven? Might there be a case for putting out in wordpress and learning dreamweaver in the meantime. Also dreamweaver costs £200 – is there an altrenative??
Alos I'm not sure how you that Freeola is "free" – looking at their website isn't it the case its only free if you have broadband with them?
Also uploading via the phone sounds like a bit of a nightmare – how does this compare elsewhere – its broadband I'm sure??

34SP.com for domain and hosting, use Drupal (or WordPress) for the website. Job done. Up and running with a quality website in no time.

34SP are rock solid and very helpful.

one and one sound expensive, 123-reg.co.uk @ £2.24 doesn't have a database so steer clear, you cant use WordPress or Drupal or any other CMS (content management system).

Get it right 1st time and save a lot of hassle in the future.

I use justhost.com for hosting, they provide a cracking package and I registered my domain with 123-reg who then **** up my renewal last time saying I had transfered it elsewhere. Took weeks of arguing with them and had to pay a fee to get it back, they then ignored my emails regarding refund and emails supporting I'd not moved it from nominet. Put it down to experience in the end and will be moving the domain name before it's due renewal.

Oh and why bother with Dreamweaver when you can be up and ruunnig within minutes with a good provider who provides tamplate software such as Dreamweaver.

A one I messed about with some months back was this one just to try out different template software.

http://www.seeuenties.lost-soul.co.uk/

So I've now looked at 34SP.com and have no idea which option to go with
I want them to host for me and for me then to be able to use wordpress to create a website
whats confusing me is that they also offer an option called wordpress hosting but it seems to offer less storage?
can anyone help??

Drac
do justhost.com support wordpress?
also they also offer a free domain for life – is this what you now have?
cheers

Yeah they do WordPress and domain for life too, it's unlimited bandwidth and unlimited domains in fact they offer shit loads. Costs about £5 iirc.

Oh click here in you fancy it and want sign up.

http://stats.justhost.com/track?c89950b3a34d9c8f17cecb50fb6ea113

😉

well I've just had a chat with justhost.com and it's a domain for life as long as you stay with them and keep paying
if you go elswewhere you can take the domain with you but then have to start paying for it
also one thing I'm slightly confused about – their standard service is £2.49/month and premium is £6.49/month
Only real difference is 2 extra free domains with the premium
Person I spoke to said that you can add an extra domain to the standard package for £9.99 per year, so why would anyone take out the standard package, when its essentially £36 more per year and 2 more domains would only cost £20??

well I've just had a chat with justhost.com and it's a domain for life as long as you stay with them and keep paying
if you go elswewhere you can take the domain with you but then have to start paying for it

Makes sense.

Person I spoke to said that you can add an extra domain to the standard package for £9.99 per year, so why would anyone take out the standard package, when its essentially £36 more per year and 2 more domains would only cost £20??

No idea made no sense to me either.

Just don't choose 1and1, they are scammers of the highest order. You'll be billed for the rest of your life, costs will double for no reason and even if you cancel you still get invoices and fake solicitors and debt collector letters for years.

You wanna look for a host that has a Fantastico control panel because there are easy wizards that install a blank site like wordpress for you in 10 minutes.

I'd recommend http://ariotek.co.uk/hosting/shared-hosting/basic-shared-hosting a small UK company, you might even speak to the same person twice if you need support.

I'm not sure I understand the difference at the moment but its been recommended that I work with wordpress.org rather than wordpress.com – will I be up and running with the .org version in 10minutes??

Not unless you already have a host, all you get from there is the software to upload on to one?

I run our website, email, etc. through Yahoo Small Business. They're not the cheapest out there, but price is reasonable and so far (2 years) service has been flawless. Plus, we have unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth, etc.

I did all our website design on Dreamweaver. It's very easy to learn (no harder than MS Word etc). The pros will (and do) sniff, but WGaF? It's cool to design stuff on Dreamweaver, then move on and tweak it a bit just by adjusting the HTML or, as I've eventually done, by learning a bit of javascript, etc.

See The White Room for what I've come up with as pretty much a beginner (I did do one previous site using Dreamweaver while I was at Uni 8 years ago – still using the same version of Dreamweaver too!).

Our site just gradually gets slicker and more sophisticated as I learn something new. I think I'm now about 2 major steps off the pace, but I'm probably kidding myself even at that!

Error 400 – bad request on your site Steve…

when I looked at dreamweaver it seemed amazing but I have to learn it and its expensive -well to me at least!!

There's a wordpress installation programme on you Cpanel with justhost dead easy to setup.

http://www.lost-soul.co.uk

It is just stevo's link not site. With a proper host there's no reason that a CMS/Wordpress couldn't be a place holder site till a html was ready. It only takes a few weeks to get grips with an hit limits of wordpress and the like.

Html / dreamweaver give more scope for SEO to get a decent position in Google too.

On that subject anyone noticed how this site is so quick on google, sometimes posts are on there in minutes? Lets try this: stwgobbdegookynessword

Oops, yeah, typo in my link. Correct one here: The White Room

tinribz
thanks for the reply but you'll have to explain in a bit more detail including your acronyms!!

read again and understand except for SEO??

SEO = Search Engine Optimisation

Basically, setting your site up so that it'll rank well on Google. There are all sorts of ways and means and it's kind of a black art, but basically it comes down to good sites ranking higher than bad ones!

well I think its between ariotek and justhost.com
what shades it in ariotek's favour is that they have a website that's pleasing to the eye, whereas justhost's is awful( although not as bad as one and one!!)
will probably go with justhost as they're a bigger company but must admit I'm worried about getting the domain name from the same company I host with – should I be??

I'm sorry Steve but that site does look very amateurish, WordPress can look way better in less than 5 minutes as well as other template software.

Igore Justhos'ts frontpage you use it ever again the control panel is excellent.

Drac – you don't work for justhost do you?
Seriously though, thanks to everyone for their help on this
I'm sure I'll be posting with more problems once I sign up with someone!!

Getting domain and hosting at the same place is better short term because they'll set up the DNS etc for you / configure the domain so it points to the right place.

Transferring domains between hosts is not that complicated (compared to transferring ownership). It is the same as setting up when separate but it's one less thing to worry about at the start. There might be a small fee to transfer out though.

May have changed but hosts used to require you to have a domain name first, or buy one.

Actually one thing I'd like to ask is what do you guys think about having hyphens in a domain name?
I read it can help find the website when running a search

Drac – you don't work for justhost do you?

lol no just a happy customer.

"Html / dreamweaver give more scope for SEO to get a decent position in Google too." = False.

Hyphens are seen by google as spaces so a domain name or page name with hyphens will split the words underscores don't work the same.

hitman – Member

So I've now looked at 34SP.com and have no idea which option to go with
I want them to host for me and for me then to be able to use wordpress to create a website
whats confusing me is that they also offer an option called wordpress hosting but it seems to offer less storage?
can anyone help??

Just go with the Professional 500 it will have way more than you'll ever need and they have scripts that will install programs automatically for you and they have a wordpress one or joomla if that's the way you want to go. Scripts are free.[/url] I'd still use Drupal but's that because thats what I like to use and know well, also it has loads of modules to customise it and it is very web compliant, which add to the SEO of a site 😉

Another question
I'm going to register my domain name at .co.uk
Is it worth registering the same domain name at.com, .net,, .eu etc
and how many should I consider?

Not really necessary unless you think your product, service or idea is worth protecting.

I'm sorry Steve but that site does look very amateurish, WordPress can look way better in less than 5 minutes as well as other template software.

Show me a decent site created with wordpress then (not being grumpy, genuinely curious!).

Hey Drac if you were after commission you should have said:

From JustHost.com terms and conditions

Commissions will be paid to affiliates based on successful referrals. A successful referral, or sale, is defined as: a non-fraudulent, active for a period of thirty (30) days, not cancelled web hosting client who has paid for services in full and has been directed to us through your affiliate tracking link.

I posted a link up there, wasn't my intial thoughts but was worth a pop.