If you are looking to get your first domain and hosting, I recommend that you buy a shared hosting. The prices of shared hosting may range from a few dollars to over $100 per year. You will want to choose a company with good reputations, I can easily name more than 5 hosting companies which you can trust the fate of your websites to: Hostgator, DreamHost, LunarHosting, HostMonster, IXWebHosting and BlueHost.
There are many things to consider before getting a hosting account, such as:
- how many domains are allowed (usually 1 main domain, several add-on domains)
- stability of the host (all hosts I mentioned above have close to 99.9% uptime, I think)
- bandwidth (different people may have different needs, depends also on type of sites)
- support (most top hosts now have live chat support, phone support, support ticketing sytem)
- cPanel (most popular control panel for hosting account)
- PHP
- MySQL
- Fantastico
- Stats
Finally, if you can afford it, do seriously consider the hostings which I have mentioned above. Paying slightly more to ensure the stability of your sites is a good investment. I will also let you in on a secret, I mentioned those hosting companies not only because their prices are affordable, their hostings are stable and their supports are excellent. I mentioned them because they leave an impression on me, some of them have great sign-up offers to attract customers such as free domain, free advertising credits (Google AdWord and others), free setup and other free gifts. So, shop wisely, take your time to evaluate your options, ask for advices from more experienced folks and select the best shared hosting package for yourself. Good luck buying your own hosting :)
4 comments:
If you want the most bang for your buck definetly go with hostmonster. With it you get a free domain registration, $50 Adsense card, $50 yahoo ads, and great tools.
The free domain registration is but a small motivation factors. IMHO, the free advertising money is worth much more than free domain for life.
Choosing a web hosting company can be very confusing. Here is a very good article which explains the differences between different types of hosting services. Information Center
I want to build a website for a side business, but I'm not at all versed on web design and I'm not at all certain that I want to invest much money in it.
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