Register Domain & Hosting - Tech Support Forums

Minimum · July 10th, 2008, 08:58 PM

Hello folks. I have a few questions regarding hosting and registering a domain. I've checked around and the domain that I'm looking to get is available but I'm wondering if it would be better to register and host the domain from the same company or split the two. What do you folks think? Also, I was wondering if anyone had any good ideas on some companies. I've looked at Network Solutions and GoDaddy but I want to keep my options open. Basically the run-down of the web site will focus on gaming, anime, and manga. There will be news, reviews, and maybe even a blog for my brother and I to post to. Other than the general site content to go along with news, reviews, and blogs we are also planning on implementing a forum for users to interact more. I understand the need for bandwidth and a reliable provider but does anyone know of a good provider to match our needs? Or maybe most of the providers could fulfill this but I really appreciate the input from folks here. We're going to be using Joomla! and SMF for our site so it's fairly easy to manage anyway. Well I appreciate your help and thanks for your time.

EXreaction · July 10th, 2008, 09:20 PM

Never have your web host manage your domains. Not only can they lock you from having your domain if you do something they don't like, but if you do ever want to change hosts then you'll have to transfer the domain which takes a long time.

I have my domain with godaddy (I don't think it really matters who hosts your domain as long as you can easily configure the dns servers for it).

I host my site with WebFaction. I doubt you'll find a better shared host than them. Their hosting control panel has a bit of a learning curve, but it is pretty powerful plus you can compile and run your own software in your home directory.

The site I run: Lithium Studios

Currently I use 350-500MB of bandwidth per day usually and use about 12GB per month. Google Analytics says I get about 1,000 page views per day. Which isn't too much, but there have been very few times I've noticed the server down. The page generation time is quite fast for me using phpBB3 though, for the forum index it is about 0.05-0.06 seconds.

Minimum · July 10th, 2008, 10:06 PM

Well thanks for explaining the hosting method that is most desired. I don't feel like getting got in something or having to deal with some company's BS so that does make a lot of sense. More of an in depth question on your site.. about how much disk space are you taking up? I know our site won't be extremely popular right from the start or ever but it's nice to know a ballpark figure. As for a learning curve with that host.. well I can deal with a bit of a learning curve if it's worth it. I'll look into the host a little more later on after I confer with my brother. Appreciate the input.

EXreaction · July 10th, 2008, 10:57 PM

The control panel says I am using around 700MB.

It would take a very large site to use up the 10GB space limit, and even then the only way to fill up most of that size would be with attachments.

For the actual forum files I probably only use 30MB plus the database size is about 25MB.

About half of that 700MB I use is used in subversion repositories.

You can always just give webfaction a try. I think they have a 30 day refund, so there isn't really anything to lose except a bit of time trying to figure it out.

About the only real issue I had was trying to get SMTP setup (they do not have mail enabled within PHP so you'll need to use SMTP). The reason for that was I wasn't using the correct username and password.

EXreaction · July 11th, 2008, 10:36 PM

edited

eeps24 · October 18th, 2008, 06:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EXreaction

Never have your web host manage your domains. Not only can they lock you from having your domain if you do something they don't like, but if you do ever want to change hosts then you'll have to transfer the domain which takes a long time.

I have my domain with godaddy (I don't think it really matters who hosts your domain as long as you can easily configure the dns servers for it).

I host my site with WebFaction.

Currently I use 350-500MB of bandwidth per day usually and use about 12GB per month.

--------------------------------------------------------

1. you mean deal with two companies? register the name with one company and then make the actual site with another company?

2. is 350-500MB considered normal traffic? does that mean people just browsing your site take up that much?

Nude_Lewd_Man · October 18th, 2008, 06:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eeps24

--------------------------------------------------------

1. you mean deal with two companies? register the name with one company and then make the actual site with another company?

2. is 350-500MB considered normal traffic? does that mean people just browsing your site take up that much?

1) Yes, then if you have a disagreement with the hosting company they can't completely shut you down... The best analogy I can think of is that if you give the keys to your gaff to one person and the alarm code to someone else then neither can completely screw you over...

2) I don't do any proper hosting (yet) so I can't answer for usage etc, but if you work out the size of the page (including images, backgrounds, flash/animations, videos, soundtracks etc) that is what every person who accesses will be downloading, if you then have additional files that will be downloaded frequently this will add up - especially when people move from one page to another - I think this could be part of the reason a few sites have a common "shell" and just change panels of the page...

Nude_Lewd_Man · October 18th, 2008, 06:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EXreaction

You will not even get near 300GB of bandwidth. For the far, far majority most sites you are looking at less then 10GB a month, but most probably use less than 1-2GB unless you host/share large files.

I just saw this as another active thread and thought I'd post the post...

eeps24 · October 18th, 2008, 07:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nude_Lewd_Man

1) Yes, then if you have a disagreement with the hosting company they can't completely shut you down... The best analogy I can think of is that if you give the keys to your gaff to one person and the alarm code to someone else then neither can completely screw you over...
..

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thank you for posting back to me I appreciate it.

im just a little confused on all this... lets say i registered my domain with company A and made my acutal webpage content with company B ....lets say company B pissed me off or vice versa and i wanted to leave, they can shut down my webpage... this can happen with any web host, ....if company B were to shut me down, all my content is lost correct? so matter your screwed either way right? or is registering the domain more important? could company A screw me over as well if they wanted to?

**RicheemxX** · October 18th, 2008, 08:13 PM

Nude's explanation pretty much nails it but I'll try to give some perspective; just keep in mind this is basically a worse case scenario. If you use a respectable host and pay your bills you shouldn't have any issues, but they do happen.

Company A being your registrar
Company B being your host

If you are hosting a site and for some reason you have a dispute with company b, they can lock your site thus blocking your content. However since you were smart and backed all that data up, and you registered your site with company a you can then move your site to another host, no issues. You'll keep your url but maybe lose some data. Backing up always being a key component to any website

Now if company a has a dispute and locks your account then you are pretty much stuck resolving the issue so that you can keep your url, however your content is all safe because its hosted with company b.

But lets say you only chose one company, you have an issue and you aren't backed up. Then you are pretty much screwed all the way around. You won't get your url nor will you get your data back.