GoDaddy Web Host Review

GoDaddy.com is the world's largest domain name registrar and is the flagship company of The Go Daddy Group, Inc.

As an ICANN-accredited domain registrar, Go Daddy has more names under management than any other registrar, offers products at prices up to 70% less than the competition and supports them all with world-class 24/7 live customer service.

We are the sole developer and proprietor of our technology, do not license any products from others, and do not outsource or offshore any of our operations. This enables us to provide better support and ensure the most advanced and competitively-priced products and services available today.

Founded by Bob Parsons in 1997, The Go Daddy Group has grown to include more than 35 million domains under management. We offer a complete product line, including comprehensive hosting solutions, Web site creation tools, Secure SSL certificates, personalized email with spam and anti-phishing filtering, e-commerce tools and more.

come jam packed with a variety of features and services that are all user friendly and extremely useful. GoDaddy is extremely proud of their reputation for having a world class data center and extremely reliable physical services. GoDaddy actually owns all of their own hosting facilities, which feature state of the art security and advanced backup technology that provides relaible network servers.This is a sure sign of a quality web host provider and why they come so highly recomended. Additionally their price is quite comparible to other web hosting companies and they are one of the top companies when it comes to domain name registrations.

Each of GoDaddy's hosting plans comes complete with web site statistic tools to help you keep an eye on how each of your hosted website pages are performing. Setup is free and includes access to the GoDaddy.com Hosting Connection, which is a great place where you can interact with other GoDaddy users and find free applications for you to use on your web site at no additional cost to you. This is an incredible and invaluable resource that many web hosting companies do not offer. This alone makes GoDaddy a great choice for anyone looking for a quality webhost.

Domains
Aftermarket
Marketing Solutions
Site Builders
Hosting
Workspace
Support

Additional Tools
GoDaddy helps beginners easily set up their website even for those with little to know website experience. Additionally, GoDaddy includes tools for advanced developers to work with. GoDaddy also offers a variety of professional site building services and designs that you can recieve for an additional fee. All GoDaddy web hosting solutions support several programming languages. The deluxe plan we signed up for supports CGI (Python and Ruby), PHP, Perl, ASP, MySQL, ColdFusion, and FrontPage extensions.

Customer Service
GoDaddy.com has a large selection of help and support options that are available for their customers and they are accessible 24/7. The online support forum and FAQs section that they offer are very well organized and contain a huge collection of information for both beginners and advanced users.

Account Information

In addition, we do not have access to customer accounts. Therefore, we are unable to respond to billing inquiries or other questions about your customer account, so please do not include any of your account information in your comments. If you require immediate technical or sales assistance, contact us using one of the methods listed on our
Support Forum page.

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Hostgator Web Hosting

HostGator has the latest versions of PHP, MySQL, and we exceed all the minimum requirements for WordPress. There are thousands of installations of self-hosted WordPress running reliably on our stable network with 99.9% uptime.

Literally, WordPress installs can be done in just a couple clicks using the Fantastico auto-installer with HostGator. However, if you have any questions or need any assistance, help is available 24/7/365 through phones, live chat, or e-mail based ticket support.


Edit.com Website Assistance

Let the team of experts at edit.com design your next project. Whether you're looking for a logo, banner, or even a complete layout to be made, Edit.com will deliver nothing less then your 100% complete satisfaction.

Merchant Services

Taking payments online can be very confusing, we recommend you read our merchant comparison page for both prices and information on the different ways to obtain a merchant account.

Domain Registration

We sell all the major domain extensions including
.com .net .org .biz .info .tv .ws .cc .us and .bz
Prices starting at $15 a year. - Register Your Domain Online Here.

If you want to purchase a domain using Paypal, please send $15 to sales@hostgator.com and then send a separate e-mail to sales@hostgator.com and include the paypal transaction number and the domain you wish to register.

SSL Certificates

SSL encrypts confidential data such as credit card numbers and passwords. Either a shared SSL or a private SSL is required when taking credit cards off your site. You are welcome to provide us with the SSL and we will install it for $10, or you can purchase a 128bit/256bit Comodo certificate directly from us for $75.00 Please visit hostgator.com/ssl.shtml for more information and ordering.

Examples of unacceptable material on all Shared and Reseller servers include:
  • Topsites
  • IRC Scripts/Bots
  • Proxy Scripts/Anonymizers
  • Pirated Software/Warez
  • Image Hosting Scripts (similar to Photobucket or Tinypic)
  • AutoSurf/PTC/PTS/PPC sites
  • IP Scanners
  • Bruteforce Programs/Scripts/Applications
  • Mail Bombers/Spam Scripts
  • Banner-Ad services (commercial banner ad rotation)
  • File Dump/Mirror Scripts (similar to rapidshare)
  • Commercial Audio Streaming (more than one or two streams)
  • Escrow/Bank Debentures
  • High-Yield Interest Programs (HYIP) or Related Sites
  • Investment Sites (FOREX, E-Gold Exchange, Second Life/Linden Exchange, Ponzi, MLM/Pyramid Scheme)
  • Sale of any controlled substance without prior proof of appropriate permit(s)
  • Prime Banks Programs
  • Lottery Sites
  • MUDs/RPGs/PBBGs
  • Hateful/Racist/Harassment oriented sites
  • Hacker focused sites/archives/programs
  • Sites promoting illegal activities
  • Forums and/or websites that distribute or link to warez/pirated/illegal content
  • Bank Debentures/Bank Debenture Trading Programs
  • Fraudulent Sites (Including, but not limited to sites listed at aa419.org & escrow-fraud.com)
  • Mailer Pro

10 Questions To Get Answered Before Choosing A Web Host


It is particularly important for individuals and SMBs (Small and Medium-sized Businesses) that build their own websites, or spend very precious capital to do so, to find a good web hosting plan. If you are just now getting up to speed in this area, it is important that you know how quickly things change in this industry. In addition, you need to know what the basic components of a good hosting plan are, and learn to compare apples with apples, as they say.
It used to be crucially important to pick the right web host, as there were fly-by-night firms actually ripping people off and running away to Belize or somewhere. Things have settled down quite a bit, and there are scores of hosting firms to choose from, all of which are reputable and honest. It may still be true that some hosts have better uptime statistics or offer better deals, but as long as you stay with an established host you should not have any problems with rip-offs.
After making a list of potential companies, you should get these 10 questions answered before choosing a web host:
1. Will you get unlimited disk space?
You certainly can't afford to run out of disk storage space when people are relying on your site to provide important information or services. Most of today's plans, even low-cost ones, feature unlimited disk space, a testament to how much the price of hard drives has come down.
2. Is there unlimited bandwidth?
This term refers to the amount of traffic that can be sent back and forth, to and from your site. When a lot of people want to connect to your site at the same time, limited bandwidth is a real problem and a business-killer, too. Again, even low-cost plans now offer unlimited (or extremely high amounts of) bandwidth.
3. Is there a 99.9% uptime guarantee?
No web host can honestly guarantee 100% uptime, but many hosting services get very close. A standard in the industry is now 99.5%, but leading hosts will advertise a 99.9% uptime guarantee.
4. Do you get free setup?
Setup fees were appropriate at one time when the tools were less powerful and the process less automated. There is currently no reason in the world to pay setup fees, and companies that advertise that they "waive" these fees are essentially imputing a value to something they wouldn't charge for anyway.
5. Do you get subdomains allowing for unlimited sites?
You may begin your Internet strategy with a single site, but when you want to launch others you will need a way to do that, and without setting up a new domain at new cost. This option is quite important, as subdomains (with the format, subdomainname.maindomainname.com) allow you to spread out and create other separate online entities that may not be strictly related to the main domain's purpose.
6. Is 24/7 support available, and how much of it is from real people?
Some hosting services don't let customer call by phone, which should throw up a red flag. Support is absolutely critical, so make sure it's available, and the best companies will provide it in several ways-via e-mail, online web forms, chat and phone calls to real human beings.
7. Do you get installed software for databases, scripting, email, etc.?
Even if you don't understand or make use of Perl, CGI, MySQL, PHP or other acronyms you've been told are important, you do need them. You can make use of them through graphical-interface applications that ease the process, or your IT consultant or employee can handle all of it. You do need these.
8. Is the cPanel hosting tool used?
This is by far the most useful control panel for managing sites, and is made available by many of the leading hosts. If not cPanel, what tools are offered? If you can't find much information in a web search about the toolkit being used by a potential host, considering choosing only a host company that has this one available. The cPanel took is the best example of its kind.
9. Is the plan affordable?
Many hosting plans start at under $10 per month. That's very affordable, but you can do even better by paying for a year's hosting service in advance. When you start requiring e-commerce components and huge database access, your hosting cost will increase, of course.
10. Are there contracts, excessive fine print and/or hidden fees?
Everything in the plan should be made crystal clear from the beginning. Read every word of the user terms and conditions, and don't sign up for anything if you don't understand them. If you start hearing about extra fees, scratch the company off your list of potential hosts.

Domain Geolocator


How do search engines assign a geographical location to a domain name? There are two methods:

    • Look at the top-level domain (TLD) of the domain name; for example, site.co.uk, the TLD is 'uk' (United Kingdom), while for site.es, the TLD is 'es' (Spain).
    • If you have a generic TLD (such as .com), then the location of the hosting is important. So a .com site hosted in the UK will show up in the UK-specific searches better.

  • Look at the incoming backlinks to a domain name, and profile their geographical location. For example, if a lot of sites related to Canada link to your site, your site will rank well for Canadian-specific searches.
The first method is what Google uses (see their Tips for non-US sites) and there is evidence that MSN and Yahoo use the second method (see this great post at SEOmoz).

How does the Domain Geolocator Work?

This tool profiles the geographical location of a domain name using the two techniques described above. You simply feed it a domain name, and it uses a combination of whois searches, IP resolution searches, and the Yahoo! API to profile the domain name.
The first thing it does is check the TLD of the domain name and check where the domain is hosted. For that, it uses a geo-to-IP database that is 97% accurate. If you spot an inaccuracy, please let me know.
The second thing the Domain Geolocator is profile the incoming backlinks for the domain name using the Yahoo! API. To do that, it retrieves the first unique 1000 backlinks it finds, and then groups them by TLD (.com, .net, .uk, etc as they are found). This gives you a quick glance about which countries might be most relevant to the domain name.
Further, you can get a detailed view for each TLD group. The detailed view tells you what the incoming links are, which domain they belong to, what is the TLD of the domain (country-specific or generic), and where the linking domain is hosted. You can export the detailed views into Excel files.
A note on speed: The Domain Geolocator can be slow as it retrieves the 1000 backlinks. The Domain Geolocator 'plays nice' and is speed throttled to avoid stressing the Yahoo! service (and avoid a ban!). Also, if the data is not retrieved for whatever reason, the Domain Geolocator automatically waits a few seconds and tries again. During peak times, the retrieval can be slow, so please be patient!

Domain Hosting and Bandwidth


Why bandwidth is so important when you sign up for a web hosting plan? By definition, bandwidth is the amount of data that passes through a certain connection over a period of time. Its unit of measurement is bits-per-second or bps, while it can also be measured in megabits per second, or mbps. This term is interchangeable with data transfer allowance.

Web hosting provider put a high regard to bandwidth because as the web hosting client, you need to see to it that the amount of data transferred is acceptable, because this will help determine how much data is allowed for your website. The transfer allowance is basically the amount of allowable data transferred between your website and the people accessing your website. Now the million dollar question is: how do you determine the amount of transfer allowance that your website needs? If you want to know, you should take a good look at the actual data transfer created by your website.

To cite an example, if your website has 5 pages, then each page is approximately 50 kb. This means that if a user will take a look at one page of your site then that amounts to 50 kb. If he views 5 pages then that's 50 kb multiplied by 5 (pages) which makes it 250 kb. If you have around a hundred visitors in a day and they view all your web pages, then that is about 25,000 kb or 24.41 megabytes. If you multiply this amount with 30 (number of days in a one month period), then that is the transfer allowance or the bandwidth you will need per month. Take note that there should still be extra room for other things which require data allowance, such as emailing, utilizing FTP, and uploading. So you see, getting a good understanding of the bandwidth your site needs will surely help smoothen the flow of traffic to your website.

3 Free domain name websites


It is a well known fact that a Domain Name adds a profession touch to your website/brand. But, it is sometimes a case of financial crisis or some other problem that a web publisher is not able to purchase a Generic Top-Level Domain for his brand or Website in general.
In such cases a need for free Domain names is required. So, I am going to tell you about three Services which allow you to register a Domain name for free. I mentioned above that these services will allow you to register a Domain name for free, but another bonus is that they will also allow you to manage your DNS entries like CNAME, A, MX, NS records for free! Now I will describe the benefits and Demerits of each of these service for you to decide which one is the Best suited for you.
CO.CC Advantages:
  • Zero Renewal fees for Personal Domain names
  • Allows registrations of two domain names for free
  • Web forwarding facility available
  • If you donate to co.cc, you can register 100 more free domains in your account
  • You can earn money by referrals
CO.CC Disadvantages:
  • If you place Ads on the Domain name, then you have to pay 3$ as renewal fee of the Domain name every year. If you don’t pay the required amount then your Domain name will be deleted
  • The domain name will be suspended without notice if it contains any illegal/ spam/ adult material
  • Not all the Domain names are free to register. Some domain names need you to pay a small amount to register
  • You need to Set-Up your Domain name before 48 hours of Registering, else it will be deleted
CO.TV Advantages:
  • Allows registrations of three domain names for free
  • Web Forwarding Facility available
  • Site Builder functionality available
CO.TV Disadvantages:
  • Domain name is registered only for one Year. You need to re-register it after one-year.
  • Registering a Premium Domain name costs you 199$ flat.[Premium domain names are usually keywords which are short, can easily be remembered, has multiple meanings or generic quality names]
  • The domain name will be suspended if any violent/ humiliating/ illegal/ spam/ ad*lt material is hosted on it
  • You need to Set-Up your Domain name before 24 hours of Registering, else it will be deleted
    No referral system for earning through affiliates
  • They can Anytime convert any free services to paid services, remove a part or all of the services temporarily or permanently
UNI.CC Advantages:
registered for Life-Time. Forget about renewals!
UNI.CC Disadvantages:
  • Only one domain name can be registered per IP Address
  • UNI.CC might serve Advertisements on your website (in some cases)
  • Your Domain name will be deleted without notice if you don’t get more than 10 Hits in 3 months duration
  • Domain name is deleted if any defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, obscene, infringing, or threatening content is hosted on it
  • Members need to pay a small maintenance fee to keep their sites free of banner Ads
    You cannot manage CNAME entries in your DNS settings
Even though there are many more services like these ones, most of them are spam sites. Keep in mind that these services allow you to Manage your Domain names completely by giving access to DNS setting and these services are completely different from URL redirection services.

Now, I think I have made a decent effort to tell you the Advantages and Disadvantages of these services and I would like to know which services interest you and which of these will you use for free domain name and WHY? . Looking forward your answers!

Regional Domain Names


If you are aiming at a regional audience as well as a global one, our advice is to try to register names with different extensions (e.g. .com and .co.us). If you are a US based company then a .co.us domain name will give your US based audience the confidence that they are dealing with a company 'close' to them as well as ensuring International audiences are aware of the fact that you are a US based company.

A .com extension will ensure that you will attract casual visitors, as well as providing your site with an International profile.As you will likely be using your domain names for email as well as other marketing, you should ensure that they are both memorable and enduring.We hope that you have found these domain name tips useful.

You can check to see if your choice of domain name is available by visiting our domain name registration. If it is available, register the domain name straight away, as any delay can cause it to be snatched up by someone else and put you back to square one.

Visual Domain Names


Human memories remember words by visualizing them as pictures. For example, if you think of the words "pink" and "pig", your mind doesn't bring forward pictures of the words into your short term memory, it brings up a picture of a pink pig. It therefore follows that you should, if at all possible, use words that can be easily visualized in your domains. If you want customers to remember your domain name above all others, use words such as red, hot, purple, square etc.... It really is important.
Don't just take my advice, prove it to yourself. Read the next four site names; bartholimuwpatersonandsonsrecords.com, pink-pidgeon-records.com, square-penguin-cds.com and usbasedrecordandcdsuppliersandsupplies.com. Give yourself five minutes, reading the rest of the page and without referring back, write the four names down from memory. There is a 90% chance that you will remember number two and possibly number three, because your memory will have created a picture as you go along, but it's unlikely that you will accurately remember the other two. Even if you do, try remembering them again tomorrow. It won't be so easy.

Short Domain Names - Good Advice

Keep your domain names short and simple and you'll make them memorable. If you are using multiple words in your domain name, think about inserting a "-", between the words. For example, domainnameregistrationtipsus.com is an awful lot more difficult to read, recognize and to remember, than domain-name-registration-tips-us-com. While offering short domain name advice, I would suggest that you avoid acronyms, as they are sometimes hard to remember, for example; xscpr.com.

Choose a Memorable Domain Name

We would advise you to choose a domain name that your target audience will be attracted to and will remember. This does not mean that when you are completing your domain name registration, you should be packing the URL with keywords. It is better to use a brand or company name, particularly if you already have an established corporate identity, than to try to create a name, purely for the search engines. Many visitors may try to guess your domain name based on your company name (e.g. www.jimmy-domain-registration-advice.com), and by increasing the possibility of them finding it without having to use search engines, it is possible increase your flow of traffic. For example, we choose RDI Technologies as our domain name, as it is easy for our clients to remember, (and to return to), rather than using something like SEO-design-domain-name-registration-tips.com, as the latter is hardly memorable,. (RDI is derived from the names R:: Resources D:: Driven I:: Intelligently).
It used to be the case that using lots of keywords in your domain name gave you an advantage with the search engines, and that is often the outdated domain name advice that you will find elsewhere on the web, but now the advantage is so minimal, that it is more advantageous to have a corporate identity that is easily remembered.

How And Why Of Giving Away Free Domain Names

Perhaps you already know that it is possible to get a free domain name.However, have you ever wondered how a country can afford to give away its domain names for free? Why would a country just give away its domain names instead of charging for them?
  • Free Domain Names from Dot TK
It is possible to get a free top-level domain name from Dot TK (www.dot.tk).
According to their website, "Dot TK is a joint venture of the Government of Tokelau, it's communication company Teletok and Taloha, Inc., a privately held company. The Government of Tokelau has appointed Taloha, Inc. as the exclusive registration entity."
Of course, for free .tk domains, ownership remains with Dot TK. This means that you can't sell it. As well, there are other restrictions and disadvantages of free .tk domains, including:
-You can register only a maximum of three free domain names; -You need 25 visitors within a ninety day period; -You need to have existing web content somewhere so that your dot tk name can be forwarded to it; and -Dot TK uses frames to show your website. This being the case, you may have issues with navigation (bookmarking or finding specific pages) and
search engine friendliness.
For serious business use, you might want to pay the nominal cost for a domain name.
  • Why Do They Offer Free Domain Names?
Still, it is free. Why would they do this when they could make money from the sale of domain names?
According to their website: "Why does Dot TK give away free domain names? We believe that the Internet was supposed to be 'Free'. Meaning no charges, payments or expected return favors."
  • How Can They Afford to Give Away Free Domain Names?
This logically leads us to our next question: How can they afford to give away free domain names?
Dot TK makes money from paid domain names, including some special and trademarked names.
To help support Dot TK, you can optionally have an ad displayed on your website. Thus, they do receive some advertising revenue from this. However, the big money would be in the sponsorship by large corporations.
  • Other Free Top-Level Domain Names

By the way, this is not the only ccTLD (country code Top-Level Domain) that gives away some domain names for free.
As just one example, cg is the ccTLD for the Republic of Congo. Each of its citizens and lawful residents are allowed one free .cg domain name.

  • Free Subdomain Names

Additionally, subdomain names are also available for free. For example, eu.org states on their website that their goal "is to provide free subdomain registration to users or non-profit organizations who cannot afford the outrageous fees demanded by some NICs, especially in Europe."
As well, nr is the ccTLD name for the Republic of Nauru. You can receive a free subdomain name from co.nr. Thus, your domain name could be something like yourcompany.co.nr.

Why do countries give away free domain names? They want their citizens and others to be able to enjoy the benefits of domain name use without cost being an issue. It can also be a promotional method designed to get the word out about their ccTLD.
How can these countries afford to give away free domain names? Advertising revenue and the sale of paid domains are two ways of funding free domain names.

Choosing a Good Domain Name


Before you rush out and choose your domain name or name your website, you might want to consider the following points:
Your Domain Name Should Be Your Website Name
Naming your site after your domain may seem obvious to some of you, but you'll be surprised to learn that not every website is named after the domain name even when the webmaster owns that domain name.
Naming a site after its domain name is important, for the simple reason that when people think of your website, they'll think of it by name. If your name is also your URL, they'll automatically know where to go. For example, when people think of
thefreecountry.com, they don't have to wonder what URL to type into their browser to get there. The name of the site is also the URL.
Imagine if your business (or website) is called "Acme", but somebody else holds that domain name. Instead, you have some obscure domain name called, say, "mybusiness.com". What happens when your customers, recalling that Acme has a product they want, type "www.acme.com"? They'll wind up at your competitor's website. One lost sale.
In the modern world of the Internet, where people automatically turn to the Web for information, it pays to have a domain name that reflects your site or business. There are just fewer things for your customers or visitors to remember. Moreover, you don't seriously think that they'll try to memorise an unrelated URL just because you want them to, do you? The only people who'll memorise it are you and your competitors who want to compare your prices.
What if you cannot get the domain name of your choice? It really depends on how committed you are to that particular name. If you have an existing brand name that you're known for, you'll probably not want to ditch that name just because you couldn't get the domain name. After all, it took you a lot of time and money to establish that name. If so, you might simply want to try to buy over the domain name from the current owner. Check up the "whois" information for the domain, and contact that person listed to see if they're willing to sell it. You probably should be aware that they are likely to want to charge a higher fee than you'll normally get when buying new domains (assuming they want to sell it in the first place).
On the other hand, if you're just starting out, you might prefer the cheaper alternative of trying to obtain a domain name first, and then naming your website (or business) after the domain that you've acquired. So if you've acquired, say, the domain name "acme.com", then your website and business might be named "Acme" or "acme.com". I know this seems a bit like putting the cart before the horse, but that's the reality if you don't want to lose out on the Internet.
Generic Names Or Brand Name Domains?
know that a number of people seem to think that your domain name really must be some generic name like "cars.com" if you are selling cars. Witness, for example, how much money those generic names are being sold for. But seriously, if you were looking for a car, you'll probably already have some brands in mind, and you're more like to try out things like generalmotors.com or toyota.com rather than just cars.com.
For that reason, I personally feel that a domain name that matches your brand name is very important. The very name that you use to advertise your product is the name that you will want for your domain, because that is the first thing that people will try in their browser. It is also the easiest thing for them to remember, and whatever that is easily remembered, will be more likely to be tried out than the obscure domain name
Long or Short Domain Names?
Domain names can be of any length up to 67 characters. You don't have to settle for an obscure domain name like avab.com when what you mean is AcmeVideosAndBooks.com.
Having said that, there appears to be some disagreement about whether a long or short domain name is better.
Some argue that shorter domain names are easier to remember, easier to type and far less susceptible to mistakes: for example, "getit.com" is easier to remember and less prone to typos than "connecttomywebsiteandobtainit.com".
Others argue that a longer domain name is usually easier on the human memory - for example, "gaepw.com" is a sequence of unrelated letters that is difficult to remember and type correctly, whereas if we expand it to its long form, "GetAnEconomicallyPricedWebsite.com", we are more likely to remember the domain name.
Some of these arguments are actually academic. It's increasingly difficult to get short meaningful domain names. I have not checked, but I'm fairly certain that names like "getit.com" and "good.com" have long been sold. If you manage to get a short domain name though, the key is to make sure it's a meaningful combination of characters and not the obscure "gaepw.com" in my contrived example above.
Long domain names that have your site keywords in them also have an advantage in that they fare better in a number of search engines. The latter give preference to keywords that are also found in your domain names. So, for example, if you have a site on free C++ compilers with a domain name like freecpluspluscompilers.com, it might fare better in a search for "free C++ compilers" than my other site,
thefreecountry.com.
Which would I go for? I'd go for the shorter name if I can get a meaningful one, but I'm not averse to longer names. However, I would probably avoid extremely long names verging on 67 characters. Aside from the obvious problem that people might not be able to remember such a long name, it would also be a chore typing it and trying to fit it as a title on your web page.
Hyphenated Names?
Should you get a hyphenated name? There are a few things to consider here:
a. Disadvantage: It's easy to forget the hyphens when typing a name. Many users are used to typing things like freecpluspluscompilers.com but not free-c-plus-plus-compilers.com. They'll probably leave out the hyphens and wind up at your competitor's site.
b. Disadvantage: When people recommend your site to their friends verbally, having hyphens in your domain name leads to more potential errors than when the name does not contain hyphens. For example, how do you think your visitors will refer to your site if it is named "acme-books-and-videos.com"? They might say, "I visited Acme Book and Videos dot com yesterday. It was fabulous." Their friends, remembering that comment later, might type into their browsers "acmebooksandvideos.com". Oops.
c. Disadvantage: It's a pain in the neck to type. Enough said.
d. Advantage: Search engines can distinguish your keywords better and thus return your site more prominently in search results for those keywords occurring in your domain name.
e. Advantage: The non-hyphenated form may no longer be available. At least this way, you still get the domain name you want.
Personally, I prefer to avoid hyphenated names if I can, but I guess it really depends on your domain name and your situation
Plurals, "The", and "My" Forms of the Domain Name
Very often, if you can't get the domain name you want, the domain name registrar will suggest alternate forms of the name you typed. For example, if you wanted website.com, and it was taken (of course it is), it might suggest forms like:
thewebsite.commywebsite.comwebsites.com
and the like, if they were not already taken as well. The question is, should you take them?
My personal opinion is that if you take the "the..." and "my..." forms of the domain name, you must always remember to promote your site with the full form of the name. Otherwise, people are likely to forget to affix the necessary "the" or "my". For that reason, I always advertise my sites as "
thesitewizard.com" and "thefreecountry.com" in their full domain name forms, rather than just "Free Country" or "Site Wizard" (without the article).
On the other hand, I would not take the plural form of the domain name (eg, websites.com) if I cannot also get "website.com", since the chance of the visitor failing to type the "s" in the name is very great. Think about the famous name tussle between etoys.com and etoy.com. Many people wanting to go to etoys.com were apparently going to etoy.com instead. If it happened to them, it can happen to you too.
COM, ORG, NET, etc?
One common question I encounter is from people who can't get the ".com" domain of their choice, but find the ".net", ".org" or other country-specific top level domains (TLDs) available (like .de, .nu, .sg, etc). Should they try for these?
The answer is not as straightforward as you might think. If your website or business caters to the local community, such as a pizza delivery business or recruitment agency or the like, then it makes sense to get a country-specific domain. You actually benefit from having such a local domain because the people in your country know that they're dealing with a local entity, which is what they want. After all, if they stay in (say) the United Kingdom, they're not likely to want to try to order pizza from pizzaparlour.com, which suggests a US or an international site. You'll have better luck calling it pizzaparlour.co.uk, ie, with a UK domain.
What if yours is a site or business that can benefit from an international audience? There are actually many schools of thought on this. I'll just mention a few common ones.
The first school of thought goes on the premise that it is better to have a domain name of your choice "myperfectdomain" even if it has a TLD of ".net", ".org" or some other country specific extension, than to wind up choosing an obscure domain name for the simple reason you can't get your first choice. Thus they would settle for domain names like "myperfectdomain.de" or "myperfectdomain.net" or whatever. Against this is the argument that if you get a country specific domain, people might think that your business only caters to that country.
Another school of thought finds that ".net" and ".org" extensions are actually quite acceptable domain names. For some, the ".org" extension actually describes the non-profit nature of their organisation. So, for example, the famous Apache web server can be found at "apache.org".
Others settle for the ".com" extension and no less. As grounds for their arguments, they cite the browser algorithms used to locate a website when a user simply types a name like "acme" into the browser. Apparently, the browser searches for a domain name "acme.com" before attempting "acme.net", etc. As such, people who do that will be delivered to your competitor's site if you do not also own the ".com" extension. Indeed, even if people do not rely on their browser to complete their typing, many simply assume a ".com" extension when they type a domain name, so if your business is "Acme", they'll just assume your domain name is "acme.com" rather than "acme.net" or some other such name.

Tips to buy domain!


As a continuation of previous article Understanding domain and hosting, this article will discuss a few tips to buy domain. At a glance, buying a domain seems an unimportant thing, and it may be right. However, if you aren’t careful to buy domain, it can be the serious problem in the next days because a domain is like a trade mark to be protected when it has been so popular. It is not good that you cannot control for something you have.
The following are the most important thing to consider when you want to buy domain:

Buying domain at the trusted places
Buy the domain at the trusted places. If you find websites selling domain, find out the information about the websites, don’t think the cheap price is good for you. To find out the information, you can seek through search engine such as Google, or ask your blogging friends.

The transparent Customer Service
Make sure that the place where you buy the domain has the easy-to-contact customer service, if possible, find the customer service that supports 24 hours.

The access to control the domain you buy
Actually, Kang Rohman wants to focus on this point – Domain Access Control. Before you buy a domain, make sure that later you can log in to your Domain Access Control, because from the Domain Access Control, you can freely set up what you desire. For instance, you can change The Server Name so you can freely direct it.

List of top free domain providers


What is more better than having your own domain name? But it comes with a cost, yet there are alternatives, all you have to do is to choose among them. Here is a list of top free domain providers that will provide you free domain for absolutely free of cost. No hidden charges and no Terms and Condition's just pure giveaway by them.

Here is the list
If you know some more do share with us.

Domain Extensions


More correctly called 'top-level domains' they fall into two main categories, international top-level domains (COM, NET, ORG, etc.) and country specific top-level domains (US, UK. AU, CA, DK, etc.). The criteria for selecting a top level domain is simple and straightforward. If you want to target your site content to users Worldwide then you should choose an international top-level domain (e.g. '.COM') and if you want to target your site content to users in a specific locality or country then you should use a country specific top-level domain (e.g. '.CO.UK'). Do not make the mistake of thinking that you are obliged to choose a country specific top-level domain simply because you happen to live in that country.
For example, if your site is about web design then it is likely to be of interest to users all around the World and this means that you should choose an international top-level domain. At the opposite end of the spectrum, if for example you are a local window cleaning company then it is just not useful for your site to appear in search-engine listings thousands of miles away in other countries and this means that you should choose a country specific top-level domain. Choosing a country specific top-level domain name will give your site higher search engine positioning to searchers in that country and is likely to mean that you get preferential listing in local and area directories, etc. These factors can be very useful for a locality based business.
Failure to select the correct type of top-lever domain can result in great problems when it comes to promoting a web site or the product it sells.

Who Owns Your Domain?


Domain registration can be an overwhelming task since there are so many different registration companies. A Google search alone brings up 5,740,000 results! Each company seems to offer the same service so what should you look for, and which company do you choose?
The most important thing is to make sure that when you register a domain, YOU are the owner. It is a common mistake to allow the person or company who registers it for you to be the owner. If you do not own the domain, it can be difficult if you ever want to move to a new hosting company. The good news is that there is a resource online called “whois” that can identify the domain owner. If you discover that you don’t own your domain, you should work to get that fixed right away.
If you are not 100% sure if you own the domain, go to www.whois.com right now. When you get to the site, click on the words that say “WhoIsLookUp” located in blue above the search bar. You will be able to see all of the contact information related to the registrant. By the way, did you know all that information is public? Be careful of what personal information you type in because if you’re not, anyone could start emailing or calling your personal information. The good news is there is a way to hide this information. Tell your registration company that you are interested in privacy and they can hide it for an additional fee.

Best package offered by Yahoo!



Yahoo! Domains is one of the leading domain registrars in the world and has the backing of Yahoo!, a leading internet company. In fact, Yahoo! hosts its domains and websites on the very same servers as Yahoo.com, making it the most reliable domain and hosting provider in the industry.





Power of Yahoo DomainsDomain Name Features
  • 24-hour phone and online support
  • A starter web page
  • Domain forwarding
  • Domain locking
  • Private domain registration
  • Complete DNS management
Get a full web site, and your domain is FREE.

Yahoo! Web Hosting includes:
  • Free domain name
  • Free business email
  • Easy site design tools — no prior experience necessary
  • Unlimited site storage, data transfer, and email storage
  • 30-day satisfaction guarantee
The first step is to find and register a domain name for your business. You may use Yahoo every day to search the Web, and fortunately, they’ve also made domain registration very simple. Yahoo Domains is popular among website owners all over the world because of the Internet giant’s reliability and cost effectiveness. Yahoo also offers private registration, which allows you to hide your personal information from spammers and other malicious Web users who mine the domain registration (WHOIS) database for personal information.
google_protectAndRun("ads_core.google_render_ad", google_handleError, google_render_ad);

When you register a domain name with Yahoo Domains, they also provide services to guide you through the process of building a standard website or an e-commerce site.
For important sites you don’t want to leave to chance, Yahoo domain registration includes security measures to help prevent domain hijacking and other forms of abuse. You can also be assured that your private information will not be shared with third parties or individuals wanting to buy your registered domain name.
The domain name you choose is critical. It should be concise, memorable, and represent your business well. Unfortunately, many domain names are already registered by other site owners. In cases like this, Yahoo’s domain registration process assists you in selecting an appropriate domain name for your site or business by suggesting available domain names based on slight variations of your initial request.
Even if you are on a limited budget, Yahoo domains are affordable, costing less than $20 per year for all top security and customer service features.
Affordability, security, reliability, and great support make Yahoo domains an excellent choice for small businesses and even non-commercial site owners.

Domain hosting while hosting


Multiple domain hosting lets you host different websites on 1 account while paying the hosting fee for just 1 website. This way you can save hundreds of dollars on hosting. And if you are an internet marketer with numerous mini sites or niche sites, you can cut your costs even more.

How much money can you save with multiple domain hosting?
Let's say you have 2 different websites, one is your personal blog, and another one is about your hobby (e.g. about DIY). You buy a 'traditional hosting' package that costs you $7 / month. For a whole year it would cost 12 x $7 = $84. And you would be charged that amount twice, since you have 2 websites. Your hosting costs would add up to $168.If you use multiple domain hosting where the fee is, for example, also $7 / month, then you would only pay 12 x $7 = $84 for hosting both your websites. Your savings are $84 / per year. It's not that much yet, but if you host much more websites on your multiple domain hosting account, your savings will rise exponentially. For example, if you have 10 different websites, you can save as much as $756 a year.

Comparision of the amounts you can save
Different hosting companies and hosting plans allow a different number of additional domains (add on domains) that you can host on your account. Bluehost offers you the opportunity to host unlimited websites on 1 account while paying for only 1 account, The monthly free can be as low as $6.99 per month. Check out their site here >

Provider At Web Hosting Geeks


Finding the right web hosting provider is not easy. Competition is stiff and there are lots and lots of web hosting providers out there and of course, we only want the best provider that offers affordable packages. By that, I mean, we look for a balanced package of a web hosting provider that rarely has downtime and offers good bargains for its customers. Web Hosting Geeks saves you the trouble of having to look for and browse through all web hosting provider websites one by one in the internet. You save time by using Web Hosting Geeks’ resources to check out independent reviews, features, bonus features and ratings of the best web hosting providers in its list.

Whether it is a cheap web hosting service for a few bucks a month, shared or for a dedicated server, most if not all web hosting providers offer one free domain registration (which seems quite a given these days) and a 1 month money back guarantee. How great is that? Browsing through the site’s various categories for a web hosting provider, if you are looking for awarded sites, say, top rated web hosting, no problem. The cheapest? No sweat. Green hosting? They have it. You can also let the world know what you think about a web hosting provider that you have had experience(s) with by contributing a review about it.

Web Hosting Geeks has compiled its list of web hosting providers in such a way for you to be able to find the best web hosting provider suited to your needs and preferences. Its in depth reviews are more than enough to give you an idea what each web hosting provider can offer. My blog’s preference is having little or no downtime as much as possible and Web Hosting Geeks has quite a number of good web hosting providers that fit what my site needs.

Website Hosting At Pickaweb

UK web hosting at its best is only provided by Pickaweb, offering services such as website hosting, storage, domains and even web design. If you have grown tired of your website’s layout, feel free to ask for a quotation and let their team of web designers build the site for you. Or, you can make use of their easy website builder once you purchase a hosting plan from them. If you do not want to waste time, view their multitude of web templates available and ready for you to use in an instant. There are no hidden fees, a positive uptime guarantee that your site will always stay up and online and even full control of the domain name of your choosing.


These great hosting plans and bargains are offered at affordable rates to its customers. Online transactions and payments when subscribing to any of their plans are safe and secure as their site uses well known security technologies. And as customers are very important to them, 24 hour customer support is available anytime to accommodate you if you have questions or in your time of need. How confident is

Pickaweb with any of their services? If you are not satisfied with their service, they offer a 30 day money back guarantee.

Web Hosting Guide At WPDesigner


WPDesigner has only one purpose for its visitors, to provide a guide for people looking for good web host providers by including important details like price, setup if it is free or not, domain if it is free or not, disk space information, if the web hosting provider offers a money back option and uptime information. These important details will give visitors a summarized idea what each web hosting provider has to offer to its clients and as such, can easily compare against other web hosting providers in the list that would best suit their preferences.

Other than that, an in depth review of the web hosting provider itself is provided for visitors to know more about the web hosting provider’s services. If you are totally new to the web hosting stuff, WPDesigner also has good articles that will get you started and guide you accordingly so you will have an idea what factors you may have to consider when you choose the best web hosting provider for you. Most people nowadays are after the cheap and affordable web hosting provider yet one that gives the best services as well. The most up to date top 10 list are there for you to check out, at WPDesigner.

Good Domain Name Picking Tips


The first thing that comes to my mind when setting up a blog is getting a good domain name. In this article, I have described why I think it is important to choose a good domain name upfront. I have also explained how you can pick a good domain name for your blog or website followed by some domain name picking tips and general outlines (”dos” and “don’t s”).
Why pick a good domain name for your blog
Apart from many other reasons, you want to pick a good domain name for your blog site from the start because most likely you will be stuck with that domain name for the rest of the blog’s life. You may change the domain hosting provider from time to time depending on how reliable your current domain hosting provider is but the domain name will remain the same. The reason I say that you will be stuck with that name is mainly because changing the domain name is kind of like starting all over again from the start and you don’t want to do that once your site is established and getting regular traffic. You will start with ‘0′ Google Page rank and will have to work your way up again if you do change the domain name in the middle. The Alexa rank and other ranking metrics will drop too because all these rankings are associated with the domain name. So the bottom line is that you want to pick a good domain name that you can live with from the start. Now, the question is how?
How to pick a good domain name for your blog
I don’t think that there are any hard rules as to how a domain name should be picked, so use the following points as a guideline in choosing your domain name:
  • Use Keywords: Use keywords in the domain name that describe your site. The domain name should suggest the nature of your product or service. A good domain name describes exactly what the site is about. It is important for a visitor to get an idea of what the website is about just by looking at the domain name. For example if your site is about antiques and collectibles then try to get a domain name like “www.antiques.com” or “www.collectibles”.com not “www.foobar.com”.
  • Easy to remember: A domain name should be easy to remember becuase your visitors will want to type in the domain name in the web browser for revisits and if they can’t remember the domain name then you run the risk of losing potential traffic. It is also easier to spread the word of mouth when the domain name is easy to remember.
  • Keep the domain name short: A domain name should be short with less than 10 characters. It also helps the “Easy to remember” point when the name is short. Although, these days it’s incredibly hard to get domain names that are short. Basically you don’t want to end up with a super long domain name like “www.thisisareallybadexampleofdomainname.com”. When the name gets too long it gets confusing and the name can be easily mistyped in the browser.
  • Use hyphens if needed: Use hyphen (-) in between the words if needed for your domain name. If “www.domainname.com” is taken then you can try “www.domain-name.com”. Using hyphen(s) in between the words sometimes help to improve readability. It also helps in the Search engine rankings.
  • Domain name extension: Try to get the “.com” Top Level Domain (TLD) extension as it is the most popular. When people think about an website their mind automatically pictures “domain-name.com” as the address. “.net” and “.org” extensions can be used too if you cannot find a “.com” extension.

Some General things to be aware of

  • Legal conflicts: Spend a bit of time searching around to make sure you are not choosing a domain name that is similar to an already established rival. You don’t want to spend time building your blog only to find out that someone else has a similar website and wants to sue you
  • Be aware of the scammers: There are a lot of scammers around so try to make sure you buy your domain name from a registrar who is in the ICANN’s (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) accredited registrar’s list.

Go Daddy offers cheap reliable domain name registration.
As I have mentioned earlier that these rules are not set in stone. Don’t be afraid to add your own flavor. Use common knowledge and be sensible. Try your best and get creative. What is your best tip in choosing a good domain name? Feel free to leave your suggestions or comments below.

Web Hosting and Domain Name


Where can I have my site hosted?

This is the difficult question. If you cannot setup your own server, you may consider having web hosting providers to host your site.
You can choose from a lot of different web hosts. It's important to compare between different providers and to make sure that you really get the features you need, you don't want to pay to much, but still you don't want to be stuck with a provider that doesn't upscale your needs. You can read more about this and search for different types of web hosting like dedicated servers at www.webhostingsearch.com

Domain Name
If you're seriously doing business on the WWW, you may consider to have your own domain name. Internic is the organization who provide domain name registration in the US. There are other organizations handle the registration in their own country or specific regions. To find out more about an organization who is responsible for domain name registration in your country, check Thomas Ohrbom's page or Yahoo.

Free Web Pages
Yahoo provides links to free places. The most popular place people on the web go for free hosting is at Geocities. Anyway, there are many limitations of having your site host with free service providers. For example, you aren't allowed to make sub directories or use your own CGI.


Understanding Domain and Hosting


In the world of website or blog, certainly you often hear the term of domain or hosting. Domain and hosting are the essential things for a website or blog. Therefore, let’s know and understand what domain and hosting are. For those of you who are not familiar yet with domain and hosting, below is the discussion that Kang Rohman can deliver to you.
  • Domain
In creating a website or blog, you are obligated to have the domain. What is domain?
Maybe you have ever heard about this term in other fields such as math or others. If we observe the general definition, domain means a place or the territory. It will be the same as in the internet; you need to have a place for your website or blog.
To differ from one domain with another domain, the domain should be given a name, or we call it the domain name, e.g. http://kangrohman.com, http://berandaku.com, http://blogspottutorial.com, etc. In the popular term, the domain name refers to Domain.
The Domain name is various according to the goal of a website created. The types of domain are specified with the words after it such as:
  • com ( read: dot com ) : for commercial website
  • org : for organization website
  • info : for website contains information
  • biz : for business website
  • gov: for government’s website
  • etc
There are also domains tend to territory:
  • us : for website in the United States (US)
  • co.id ( read : dot co dot id ) : for website in Indonesia
  • cn : for website in China
  • co.il : for website in Israel
  • my : for website in Malaysia
  • etc
However, in the practical, the domain names are no longer for the specified identities, for instance, the domain name ends with .org, used for personal website not for an organization, domain name ends with .info, used for commercial, and so on.
To purchase the domain, you can buy it at the websites that sell domain. This purchase is not permanent, but for a period in years (usually, the price will be for one year). Or precisely, we hire the domain, not buy. But it is more popular to buy a domain not hire a domain.
In the domain, there’s something called Sub Domain (part of domain). The Sub-domain is created of the main domain. The Sub domain can be identified from a separate written by dot (point). For instance, the main domain is kangrohman.com, we can create the sub-domain as blog.kangrohman.com, tool.kangrohman.com, nangkring.kangrohman.com. Or the real example for you is like kolom-tutorial.blogspot.com. Main domain is blogspot.com and the sub domain is kolom-tutorial.
  • Hosting
If you have bough a domain and you access the domain, it will be a blank page. In order to fill out the domain, we will need a hosting to store the database, web machine, etc.
An easy illustration, domain is like a computer and hosting is like the electricity. Both are to support each other. Or another example, the laptop with its battery. So, a website should have the domain name and hosting so it can be accessed by public.
To create a webhosting, you will need the very expensive tools, therefore, a webhosting company are present to give the space or bandwidth. You can find many webhosting companies on the internet.
Hiring a webhosting is usually fixed to 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, etc. One webhosting is certainly different from another one.
That’s all today’s post. Next posts, I’ll try to discuss about how to buy a domain, select domain name, select the right hosting, etc.
If there’s a mistake in writing and explaining about domain and hosting, please correct. Thanks.