Hi, I'm looking into purchasing a domain and finding a good host just before the new year. I want to give myself plenty of time to save up money, and look around. I've never had my own domain before, and have only had sites through free servers. My site right now is very little, as I've just started, but I'm planning to expand significantly. I'm not sure exactly what I should be looking for though. I know I need at LEAST 100MB space and 20GB Bandwith (the more the better, because I have a free graphics site). Can anyone help me out, as to where to look? Or does anyone know a good first time host for a beginner? I'm really scared about getting ripped off, because I've never done this before. I hope someone can help. Thank you for your time!

Lauren

dixiesys.com, affordablehost.com and futurequest.com are all run by nice dedicated people.
You hardly can go wrong there.

You will probably get a much better deal on bandwidth on the requests forum but I would take care. If they offer you 20 GB bandwidth for $ 5 per month and they registered on october 2002 on these boards --> take care!

And don't pay a year in advance either if you decide to go that route.

Take care, choose wisely.

Thank you Pilgrim :) I bookmarked those hosting sites you listed, so I can look over better later (it's 4:30 am right now - I need sleep!). I just posted in the Requests forum, but I will be careful. Do you have an email? Perhaps I can keep in touch with you, so I can get your advice if I get replies to my other post. If it's too much trouble, I understand. But I'd surely appreciate it!

Lauren

Hopeless18,

A good thing to take into consideration would be the your prospective host's own expenditures, and how what they'll be charging you would cover those expenditures.

An simple example would be, that say a host is being charged $1 per GB of bandwidth, If they do not charge you more than $20 for 20GB of bandwidth, they won't be able to pay their own bandwidth expenses. Not to mention server maintenance, employee wages and all the other bills they'd be expected to pay.

The above example was just very simple, most hosts bulk buy and thus get cheaper rates, a good example would be ourselves, we charge $29.95 for our top of the range plan, which offers 20GB of bandwidth. There will be other hosts offering much cheaper, but by doing the maths, unless they're skimping on paying taxes, or they're a one man operation, i really don't see how it's possible.

You do get what you pay for, and usually to get the service at the specs you want, the host will have to make cutbacks for other things, most likely support, speed of connection, and all those other essentials.

It's no surprise that most of those hosts disappear after a while as well :(

Thank you so much for the advice Fazel, it's very helpful, I'll definitly keep that in consideration :)

Pilgrim - you said that I should avoid paying a year an advance. I got an offer that said they'd register my domain for free if I signed up annually ... so, is that something I should stay away from?

Lauren

Hi Lauren,

Well I'ld be happy to help you but you have to understand that I'm a webhost myself. And although I have no problem recommending other hosts which I know have good service or saying bad things about a general group of hosts I wouldn't feel too comfortable giving negative advice on specific hosts. Even though I would personally know they were total (excuse the word) crap.

There are plenty of non-hosters on these boards though. When in doubt between a number of hosts just post their names in this forum again and you'll get good and bad stories from current customers as well as a review on their prices (realistic? unrealistic?)

Sleep well

Originally posted by Hopeless18
Thank you so much for the advice Fazel, it's very helpful, I'll definitly keep that in consideration :)

Pilgrim - you said that I should avoid paying a year an advance. I got an offer that said they'd register my domain for free if I signed up annually ... so, is that something I should stay away from?

Lauren

Yes, definatly. You can register a domain name yourself these days for only $ 8.95. (www.godaddy.com) If you prepay for a year and your host goes out of business after 2 months you'll loose a lot more then the 8.95.

Tell them you'ld like to pay for the domain name yourself first, pay hosting monthly and ask them if they're willing to refund the 8.95 after you have hosted a year with them. If they plan to be in business one year from now this should be no problem for them.
Darn, I'm mean :D