Hugely OT question for computer-smart people

Submitted by rockydude on

I need to remake my business web site.(law, if it matters) So I have to buy a new domain and then rebuild the site.

I don't really know a great company to use for this. I pretty much only know GoDaddy, but I have been told that they aren't the best.

Can any of you computer whizzes tell me what company to go to to buy a domain name, and then to build a modest business web site?

The help is appreciated . . .

MGoBoard
Other

joeyb

January 18th, 2012 at 6:04 PM ^

Considering all of the SOPA stuff that has been going on around here and the fact that GoDaddy publicly supported SOPA until tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people moved their business elsewhere might signal that today would be a bad day to go with GoDaddy.

I usually just register through the host of the website. It might cost a few extra bucks a year, but everything is in one place.

Also, I've been using nearlyfreespeech.net. You only pay for what you use. If you are only planning on doing basica HTML and no server-side code, then you will pay next to nothing.

Joined: 10/12/2008

MGoPoints: 16845

CRex

January 18th, 2012 at 6:14 PM ^

GoDaddy has a horrible reputation of using poor customer service and shady practices to screw you over.  Their favorite trick is to find some BS reason to seize the site and hold it hostage.  Personally I like IXWebhosting.com for my needs.  

Some commentary:

-Many web hosts offer free email and the like with their hosting.  However this email is often not secure and not all that great.  Consider purchasing Google Apps for your Email, Calendar, etc (http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/gmail.html).  Basically you register your domain with IXWebhosting or someone else and then you can use that domain name with Google apps (so you don't end up as @gmail.com for your emails, you get @yourdomainname.com).  Five dollars per account per month gets you email, calendar, and document storage on Google's servers.  

-A lot of the smaller and cheaper providers don't have 100% uptime.  You get what you pay for.  Consider having a fallback page or something on a Google Site or something if that matters to you.  

-Consider grabbing up the .net, .org, and maybe even .info when you get the .com.  I've seen irrate customers set up yourdomainname.net and start up a site detailing why you're a horrible human being.  

Joined: 09/28/2009

MGoPoints: 9010

Purkinje

January 18th, 2012 at 6:17 PM ^

I used HostMonster for a very complicated business website for a long time. It was a fantastic host, roughly $80 per year. I had a domain name already, though, and am not sure where it came from. I handed the site off to someone else when college started eating more of my time, so it's not around anymore, but HostMonster is a good host.

Joined: 09/29/2009

MGoPoints: 2546

Geary_maize

January 18th, 2012 at 6:35 PM ^

Buying/registering a Domain name is the easy part, because after you buy the .com, all they will do is send users coming to your address to your host/servers. Unless you also buy hosting from them. It's choosing your hosting service that is the hard part.

So buying a domain with Godaddy should be fine. It's their hosting service that people complain about.

HostGator and Host Monster, are all fine options. I'd probably go with ease of use and quick customer service, as in contact us or call us or chat with us anytime anywhere if you have a problem, as my number 1 priority. I use Bluehost, and while I'm not too thrilled with their hosting(a few downtimes the past few months), the customer service is one of the best I've seen.

Joined: 09/07/2011

MGoPoints: 196

FrankMurphy

January 18th, 2012 at 6:43 PM ^

Buying a domain name is a trivial process. Just do it with whoever you buy the hosting from.

As for the hosting, I hosted a couple of sites on Bluehost.com. I have had no complaints. 

Joined: 08/19/2008

MGoPoints: 31918

Deep Under Cover

January 18th, 2012 at 8:47 PM ^

I tried both winhost and some other cheap asp hosting service and they both booted/suspended me for hogging resources... in both cases I started serving up basic asp pages and turned off my databases to prove it was on their end, but they never fixed whatever the issue was. I now host out of my living room and never experience any sort of issues they complained to me about.

Shared hosting is super annoying. next time I do that I will get a really cheap vps so I can at least control some of the resources.

Joined: 08/24/2010

MGoPoints: 830

All Aboard

January 18th, 2012 at 6:47 PM ^

don't use GoDaddy, they supported SOPA until a few weeks ago when everyone found out and started transferring domains (which, in response, they made very difficult to do)

Joined: 01/03/2011

MGoPoints: 816

rockydude

January 18th, 2012 at 7:13 PM ^

Thanks very much for all of the help. I am at that level where I can do my stuff, but I have to use those templates to build the site.

This is all really helpful, and I think I'm in business now . . .

Joined: 05/06/2011

MGoPoints: 5858

JHendo

January 18th, 2012 at 9:35 PM ^

I was a senior "tech support" rep for Godaddy for 3 years and actually just moved back to Ann Arbor this summer to get back to doing actual tech work.  I would say to get and keep your domains there.  As long as you're not trying to run your own DNS from your own server, there's no reason not to.  Price is right, their dns is moderately reliable and the interface is pretty straight forward.

However, DO NOT...I repeat...DO NOT use their hosting.  While their monitoring, security and facilities are top notch (I've been to the data centers, they're pretty awesome), their servers are utter crap.  While I was there, we purposely would cram the servers because we were getting more customers than we could keep up with, and our sub par load balancing couldn't keep either.  Thusly meaning if your site didn't go down every so often, it had good chance of consistently experiencing latency.  Also, they have a lot of BB servers (bad boy servers, for customers not playing nice).  While that's a nice concept to piss off douches, it's fairly common for a brand new hosting account to accidently get assigned to one of those servers, and it's not fun to try to go to your site when it's on one of those.  Also, if you're not too experienced it web development and need to go with a site builder, Godaddy's Website Tonight is not too user friendly.  I never had any issues with it myself because I worked with it every single day, but not a day would go by without me talking to a few people who seemed to have moderate internet know how brought to the verge of tears trying to figure it out.

Lastly, their "tech" support.  A joke.  A few great guys there, but for the most part, it's a bunch of good salesman who were hired and then given a 2 week crash course on all of Godaddy's 60+ products.  Most of them don't have any website experience outside what they were taught at GoDaddy.  Most of my job was fixing other reps mistakes caused by misinformation and misguided deflection.  However, to be fair, GoDaddy seems to attract the least web saavy clientele of any hosting provider who couldn't tell the difference between MySql and MSSQL if their life depended on it.

So basically, what my way too long rant is saying, it's fine to buy your domain at GoDaddy, but try elsewhere for hosting if you can.  InMotion and HostGator are worth a look, I guess.

 

Joined: 10/25/2008

MGoPoints: 13993

Picktown GoBlue

January 18th, 2012 at 11:29 PM ^

everyone is experiencing latency.  It's when there is too much latency too often that people notice, people complain, and people never come back to your website. 

Small nit - thanks for the insider information.  Given their advertising strategy, I can't see why one would be surprised at the clientele that are attracted to GoDaddy.com.

At the other end, was part of a small undertaking that went to Network Solutions for domain and hosting - way overpriced compared to everything else that is out there IMHO.

Joined: 01/21/2011

MGoPoints: 6180