Help with starting up a website

[lorijds]

I want to start up a website--partially for a potential business endeavor, partially as a family website.

I know nothing about this.

How does one go about owning the domain name?

Anyone have some suggestions for getting me started? Websites? Advice?

Thanks;

Lori

[cafechi]

most hosting companies will register the damain name for you for a small fee about $8 or so. some of them will give you the domain free if you pay semi-annually or annually for hosting. make sure that they'll let you transfer the domain name or keep it if you cancel hosting with them.

if you want to register the domain separately, godaddy.com is a great choice. if you do this, you'll have to update the nameservers for the domain once you sign up for hosting. the hosting company will send you an email with the nameservers to use.

they are something like this: ns1.hostingco.com and ns2.hostingco.com

once you get these set up, you'll be ready to start designing your website.

there are some programs out there you might want to try, such as dreamweaver, frontpage, wysiwyg (what you see is what you get), or write your own codes.

if you want to start a blog and then expand later, wordpress is a great blogging script with a bunch of add-ons.

if you're looking at setting up forums, etc, any hosting company that utilizes "fantastico" will have a list of scripts (including wordpress) that'll install at the click of a mouse and get you going. these will work great for you if you do not want to bother with the actual installation, which can be confusing.

i hope these help you some!

[lorijds]

Yes, it does. I googled the subject, and godaddy.com came up in an (apparently unbiased) article. I just wanted to make sure it was legit.

It's a difficult concept to me--who exactly am I paying what for? You know? Register my domain name with whom? Is there an official Internation Registry of Domain Names as a subagency in the UN? To "own" a piece of an intangible object--namely, my phrase that is an address to a place that doesn't really exist, except in this ephemeral information superhighway? It's mind boggling to me.

I can't really wrap my head around it, I'm just not that type of person. I am savvy enough, though, to not want to give my credit card number out to just anyone when trying to register my domain.

L

[cafechi]

yes godaddy is legit. i have half a dozen or so domains with them and have no problems.

as for the whole international registry thing, i am sure there is one. i have not look too hard for it before. if you register your domain with godaddy, you are paying them for your domain only. it does not come with any web hosting space to put your contents (website) on.

when you pay for the domain, you are paying a reseller (like godaddy) to register the domain (your web address) for you. domain registrations are non-refundable in that "they" (resellers) cannot undo the registration once a domain has been registered.

when you own the domain, you can change any information under the domain, like contact information, registrant information, where you want to host it, that kind of thing. and if you decide to sell the domain, you can change all the info and give control of the domain to someone else.

hosting your domain is different than registering. you usually pay for hosting monthly, but can be done annually or semi-annually. (domain registrations are a 1 time fee per year).

hosting companies provide the space (in megabytes) for you to put your contents on. if you have a big website, you'll need more space and if you have a small website, you'll need less space.

this website is very helpful for any kind of information regarding domain registers and web hosting.

http://www.webhostingtalk.com

take mothering.com, <--- that is the domain name. all these forums and contents are on space provided by a hosting company. the domain (web address) points to that space.

i hope i'm not confusing you much.

[AngelBee]

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