I know it should be ICANN-credited...but their list is just soooooo long....
If you happen to know of a good hosting provider I'd like to check their offers out, too...
PLEASE ;-) I'm new to this and am mostly looking to get into SEO and Internet Marketing and all I wanna do is choose a decent registrar/host..Ive also done some reading up, but the number of providers is just some sort of information overload to me ^^
Sorry, but we don't allow threads to run that ask for people to recommend specific hosts or registrars. The reason is that such threads would soon turn WebmasterWorld into a spam and promo forurm.
If you take some time to read the archived threads in the Domain Forum Library [webmasterworld.com] I believe you will find a few threads that talk about the criteria to apply in choosing a registrar.
Hosts? Eh, there's so many and there's so many variables, including your needs for support. A general rule of thumb is that you get what you pay for.
To any other newcomers: Feel free to add your general guidance but please don't start listing or recommending specific companies. Such posts will be whacked unapologetically.
[edited by: Webwork at 10:52 am (utc) on Dec. 20, 2006]
Look not only at the amount of time it takes to get a response, but the *tone* used and also the time of the reply. The time element is one of the reasons for doing more than one.
After the hubbub dies down, go through this forum and read the sad stories about people who got stuck when their registration reseller went flakey.
Sure, it's a few bad apples, etc. Think you can pick out which ones are bad?
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Hosting - there are so many choices! Have fun sorting through them. I will echo the suggestion of doing a pre-sales support test.
I think you will be well-served to spend MOST of your effort determining what TYPE of hosting you need, then you can worry about WHICH host to use.
Regardless of which type, look for a host that is near the geographic and/or topological center of your target user area, and which has multiple tier-1 backbone connections. I prefer hosts that are located in major data centers.
(Despite being a Californian, I like Texas for hosting. So does WebmasterWorld. We just disagree on which city. :) )
If you will be doing SEO and Internet Marketing, you will probably want a host that offers reseller-type accounts or at least support for multiple domains. The current host I am at lets me easily add new domains to my account. I just FTP and put my files in /domain1.com, /domain2.com, etc folders.
Regarding registrar, you would probably want to go with one who offers domains for under $10. My opinion is to go directly to the source and not go through domain registrar resellers because it may create problems if the reseller goes out of business or is slow on customer service. Maybe the a few others on the forum could clarify/elaborate on this issue.
Good luck!
Registrar
*********
1/ Go for the big fishes, often cheaper. Don't go for expensive reseller - some will charge you 25 USD by DNS while big fishes (even reseller) will charge you between 6 to 10USD (gross approximation).
2/ Compare prices and offers (some will give you discount, some free DNS, some free whois protection, etc.)
3/ Lastly, you may want to check if they offer a control panel to administrate multiple DNS, transfer new DNS, etc.
4/ If you have already some DNS, you may check how much they are charging you for transfering them.
5/ Once, you have few registrars in mind, google them with bad terms (like "this sucks" or "this problem") just to get an idea of the words scenarios.
Host
****
1/ Figure out what you need (Linux/Windows, shared or dedicated box, multiple domains, ini/htaccess, access to root directory, multiple dataabse and which one, own IP address, etc.)
2/ Location is also important. If 90% of your user come from US, than do host it in Germany. As said above, favor big cities.
3/ Don't host your website from a domain registrar because hosting companies often offer better services than registrar. And most important, having a different host and registrar is better for you (more freedom).
4/ Contrary to the above, avoid big fishes (especially if you go for a shared server). You better go for small growing hosting companies, but I admit they are hard to find.
5/ Again, check if they have a control panel. And
personnally, I like host that have a forum.
6/ Send emails with specific questions and wait for the reply. Review quality of their reply and the delay to reply, this will give a pretty good idea of the company.
7/ Lastly, same as above, google it for worst scenarios OR go to websites that specifically review hosting companies (although many of them sucks) OR join another great forum (like WW :) ) that allows specifics/name dropping.
It may take you few days...
Good track and good catch
Tomda
Contrary to the above, avoid big fishes
Agree! Registrar: big fish. Host: smaller fish.
That said, I've heard some good things about a couple of the big hosting fishes. I think when you move from shared hosting to VPS to dedicated, smaller fishes might be better. I'd especially avoid the big fishes that don't have hosting as their primary focus.
I *love* my VPS host. It seems to be a one-woman operation, tech-wise, and she is sharp. There's a HUGE advantage to always talking to the same tech.
I forgot about the search gambit. I *always* do a search for "<company name> scam".
Do not, DO NOT, take advantage of free registration through your host. Just don't do it. Do I have to explain why? Don't sign up with a host that offers free registration, either. (That is, don't just turn it down - walk away.) Ditto, don't host with your registrar.
I like third-party DNS as well, but I'm funny that way.
2/ Location is also important. If 90% of your user come from US, than do host it in Germany. As said above, favor big cities.
I think you made a typo there :)?
should be
2/ Location is also important. If 90% of your user come from US, than don't host it in Germany. As said above, favor big cities.
Next would be ..verify via trace route where the host company actually is physically doing the hosting ..there are many in Europe in particular who claim to be hosting in France or Germany or the UK or wherever ..but due to the lower cost of renting servers in USA DC's ( usually 2 to 5 times cheaper ) are actually renting servers in the USA ....but by being vague or sometimes deliberately missleading are saying French or German or UK hosting ..Even some of the biggest so called national hosters in Europe have most of their physical boxes in the US ..
Dont run the trace route on the hosting company ( they may well be renting space themselves for their own site in the country they claim )..run it on a few of their customers ..
A real givaway to hosters who host other than where they pretend to ( and there are many many resellers of resellers of resellers of planet etc ) are those who tell you that to ftp ..you log in with your domain name and not the IP address ..This means they can switch your hosting to somewhere else on another server ..in another country ..and you'll never know ..
Long time back I posted something on here about a company that I was translating for who were running that and other related scams ..
Avoid hosting companies that only let you contact them via geeky support tickets ..that means delays and frequently they outsource their customer service to people in another continent from the boxes and who thus never actually have access to the machines in the event of a problem ..like jtara says some of the small outfits can be very very good ( inspite of my caveat against resellers ) ..one pointer to a good one is do they give you a direct phone number to access them ..and maybe a pager for out of hours ..
If you are hosting in another country because of the search engines ridiculous preferences for geo targetted hosting ..Make sure that the host company will deal with you in your own language in emails and phone calls ( not just via a language page on their site ) and make sure that you can actually understand the messages they send ..ie; that they are clear and coherent ..
Same thing for registrars ..make sure that they communicate with their customers ( renewal notices etc ) in your language ..most French ones for example only send emails in French ..as do most German registrars send in German ..this applies even to the biggies ..and translating "your domain expires" ..or "our servers will be down from ..til ..for servicing" out of German is not what you need to do before your morning Muesli ..
( even the afnics english pages for most of it's site have been offline for "udating" over one month that I know of ..maybe even longer :o)
Read your prospective hosters T&C very carefully ..no point signing upto a non refundable year of " host ten domains on this VPS" if one month in you want to start taking on "adult" sites..and your hosters T&C forbid it ..
If you can get the names of other sites at your proposed hoster ..run a check on how many and what other sites are on the server(s) they use ..lots of sites on one server is bad .( everyone might run cron jobs at the same 03.00am and it will go to molasses) dont beleive what the company tell you about their spec .( check the server spec and inhabitants etc via an online service like the who(is.sc) or Dns stuff ) ..make sure if they are offering PHP bb services and or nuke ( that they are the latest ..and even better if there is no nuke ) ..if you are not used to running sites ask for cpanel and fantastico if you think you might want to install carts etc ..
will the server let you have .htaccess
personally ..I consider squirrel mail and horde on a server to be a point of vulnerabilty ..
dont use a doze server ..
agree with jtara ..3rd party dns is nicer
If the host says they will host IRC ..run ..hackers like to drop servers running IRC and chat services and then show the defacings in the zone ..
Bon ..second coffee of the day coming up ..-2°C when I woke up today ...bbbbrrr ..
( re-bonjour à Tomda ..ça va? .est oui ..je me calme un peu :)
edited spelling ..oi!
[edited by: Leosghost at 10:45 am (utc) on Dec. 20, 2006]
2/ Location is also important. If 90% of your user come from US, than don't host it in Germany. As said above, favor big cities.
Yep! I had the same experience with a French hoster. When checking the Whois, I found out they were physically hosting in Canada...
Back on topic, can anyone explain very shortly what squirrel mail and horde are?
so hackers can send crafted emails to those apps and the apps will then give the hacker access to other areas of the server such as the password directory , admin panel , root etc ..
search vulnerabilities and squirrel mail or vulnerabilities and neo horde if you want to worry yourself if they are on your server ..
even if they are switched off on your site ..as long as they are on one another site on the same server ..thats a vulnerability ..access can be gotten from another site to the entire server and all sites on it ..
<Snip - Please read my sticky. Everything is cool, you just need to read the rules. :) >
@the first user who answered (Im sorry but I didnt take notes of your user name, etc. b/c i copied and pasted this quote ;-))
"Regarding a host, you will want to decide on Linux (PHP) or Windows (ASP/ASP.Net) web platforms. This decision will be determined by any specific software applications you want to run (blogs, forums, etc)."
Everybody so far told me I should use linux servers as they were the safest & the cheapest but did support windows xp (which most surfers use) as well..the only problem being that if they typed in the whole url - not the website's homepage adress - they are case sensitive and thus if somebody used capital letters the page wouldnt show. Is that true? Is it ALWAYS like that or just a possible problem that might happen? But anyways...if I only use lower cases, thats probably not a big problem AND: this is only true for subdomains, not for the domain itself..or is it?! I mean does it matter whether I type in www.MyPage..... or www.mypage... or WWW.MYPAGE... on a Linux server? If I understood it well, this is only true for the 'sub-domain stuff behind the homepage's address' right? or wrong?
Also: What could I use ASP or ASP.net for? I know Im gonna use PHP and I do want to implement forums, blogs, polls, forms, photo galleries....but all of that can be done if I have PHP support, right?
Also Ive been told I need cgi-support if I might want to install a shopping cart or certain forms...? Is cgi a language like PHP btw? i read something about PHP being faster than cgi..as in a direct comparison but then again you could use cgi to implement PHP, but then it would lose its speed advantage...lol...in other words cgi is not just another dynamic language, right?
But is ASP any important for me? what can it do that other things (PHP for example) cant?
[edited by: Webwork at 7:36 pm (utc) on Dec. 20, 2006]
[edit reason] WebmasterWorld TOS [/edit]
@tomda: what is Who-is *protection* and free DNS? Ive been told before I should not only keep hosting and registering seperate, but also DNS....other people have told me, I didnt really need that and I assumed that if I dont seperate it myself usually that was taken care of by the registrar....?! thx
@jtara:
Don't sign up with a host that offers free registration, either. (That is, don't just turn it down - walk away.)
Why is that? I knew I should keep it seperate, but do you think, that if they provide both their service will usually suck as they dont concentrate one thing? It actually seemed to me as if almost every hosting provider allowed you to register a free domain (even if i wasnt gonna do it)?! I have an eye on this one hosting provider, which offers everybody 1 free domain registration...but then again it's a big one and after the advice ive gotten here im not gonna chose this one anymore, anyways...BUT: if they provide 1 free domain registration per client, I should walk away b/c I better find a hosting company (a small one), which is completely dedicated to hosting and doesnt mess with anything else?
@leosghost:
Im going to host with an US company so I guess I wont have too many of those problems, but Ill still try to check anyways. thx.
are those who tell you that to ftp ..you log in with your domain name and not the IP address ..This means they can switch your hosting to somewhere else on another server ..in another country ..and you'll never know ..
What is 'ftp'?
Read your prospective hosters T&C very carefully ..no point signing upto a non refundable year of " host ten domains on this VPS" if one month in you want to start taking on "adult" sites..and your hosters T&C forbid it ..
I read somewhere, that even if there's a refund guarantee who will tell me they will follow through with it? I prefer to rent only for months not for years....Is that overly paranoid or do hosting providers really not refund anything, even if you have a (seemingly) great gurantee and all?
"If the host says they will host IRC ..run ..hackers like to drop servers running IRC and chat services and then show the defacings in the zone .. "
You mean if they either host IRC or any other chat on their server? Does this mean, that implementing a chat on one of my sites...some time..like in a couple of months from now is not really an option unless Im fine with the (shared) server being attacked by hackers and thus having lots of uptime problems? Or could they also gain easy access to my files and code and data and mess with them if somebody else on that shared server is using IRC or a chat on their site?
What do you mean by show it in 'the zone'? I guess its another way of saying show it to their hacker peers to impress them a little?
What is .htaccess what could I need it for?
squirrel mail? horde? I agree, that it would be nice if somebody can explain it hehe
And..uhh..whats it with all this 3rd party DNS..Im gonna do some more reading on this right now..hope somebody can explain me what it is and why its better, if possible....
THAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANK YOU @everyone
P.S.: Ill read your answer tonight one more time...and show if I missed out on something, but it has definitely helped me already (for example the advice of sticking to small hosts)
You do absolutely need .htaccess if you are using shared hosting. .htaccess is the name of a file that can optionally appear in each directory where content lives. It allows you to configure Apache at the directory level.
.htaccess gives you the ability to use most of the commands that are available in an Apache configuration file (which you normally need root access to a dedicated or VPS server for). Without .htaccess, you can't use mod_rewrite (for redirects) can't control access to sections of your website using user IDs, can't take control of spider access, can't implement anti-hot-linking solutions, etc. etc. etc. with .htaccess, you have some control over your server configuration. Without it, you've got a place to plop some HTML files and pictures and host a basic website.
Unless you specifically NEED Windows hosting (because you are bought-into it, for some reason or another - i.e. you've developed some software that will only run on Windows, or only runs well on Windows, or need some specific software package that only runs on Windows) you want Linux hosting.
The operating system on someone's own computer has nothing whatsoever to do with what platform the hosting is on. i.e. - if you're running Windows XP on your home or work computer, you can use either IIS or Linux (or Unix) hosting regardless; it makes no difference. One thing has absolutely nothing to do with the other.
@tomda: what is Who-is *protection* and free DNS?
Whois data are data available on the web to check details of Domain name (who owns it, runs it, hosts it). Usually, you just go to a website that have such services, type a domain name (already taken) and you get basic info about the domain name (your name, IP, host, parked/running, etc.). Whois protection protect you from showing your full name and email address in the whois database, it's mainly used to fight spammer that track data in the Whois.
Free DNS (Domain Name). E.g: At a very popular registrar, if you buy a .com, then they give another .com for free
Whois protection protect you from showing your full name and email address in the whois database, it's mainly used to fight spammer that track data in the Whois.
And nutcases that show up at your front door. Aided by "helpful" websites that plot directions to your home using a mapping service.
I use a P.O. Box, Disposible Email Address service, and voice-mail service. (Actually, I use an inexpensive VOIP service that includes voice-mail.) It's cheaper this way if you have at least a handfull of domains. I think it also gives you more legitimacy, IMO.
Free DNS (Domain Name). E.g: At a very popular registrar, if you buy a .com, then they give another .com for free
Er, didn't know that, but... no. That's not what "free DNS service" means. Most registrars provide DNS service as a free perk. Some don't. DNS is not actually a required component of registration services.
