Shopping for a Domain Registrar
Show number 74 provided Herne with the inspiration to post a detailed comment about hosting and associated topics. One thing that I thought he might need some info on is the difference between hosting and a domain registrar. Plus some tips on choosing a good registrar.
One thing that should be clarified is that “hosting” differs from a “domain registrar”. A web hosting service is one that provides you with storage and bandwidth in order to host content. Be that a blog, website or just for your own personal “virtual hard drive” space. The last one is in fact a very cheap way of obtaining an insane amount of storage online for next to nothing compared to other services.
A domain registrar on the other hand is a company that you use to register a domain name. GoDaddy is one example of such a company. These services usually offer a search engine to see if your choice of domain name is available or not. If it is, you pay them to register it. Usually this is a 12 month or more registration. After that you need to pay again for another term. Don’t let it expire or you may loose your domain! Speaking of which the GGP is due.
Once your domain is registered you can use it to point to your website that you created on your hosting service.
With a domain registration you usually get a swag of other services for free. Or you should. These free options vary from registrar to registrar and are often not based on cost. DownloadSquad made a great post yesterday on what to look for in a domain registrar and you should check it out if you are looking to register a domain.
I will say that GoDaddy does fit the “what to look for” bill. One criticism I do have of GoDaddy is that the offer of more options when you are registering a domain that can make the process confusing for a newbie. Don’t be swayed by the offers, they will cost you more. But as Cait said in the last show, make a point of adding privacy protection to your registration. It is a nominal cost and well worth it. Don’t use a bogus name, email address or any other personal data when registering; this might cause you problems later. But privacy protection gives you the best of both worlds.
If you have an idea for a domain that you want and it is available, Then register it! If you don’t it may be gone when you do want it.
Remember that you can get a 10% discount from Godaddy by using the code that we mention in the podcast when you check out! Listen to the latest show for all the GoDaddy info to get you started with your own domain.
Dave
January 30th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Hi Dave
You are advertising GoDaddy as a great registrar but you fail to mention that it is a great service ONLY for the typical domains like .com, .net etc. When you want to register a domain like .co.uk or .eu GoDaddy is UNABLE to make it private for you and you are stuck with transferring it to another registrar who is local and will probably charge you for the transfer. You end up paying twice! So please inform your listeners that GoDaddy is not good for the .co.uk domains.
Cheers,
Raf
January 30th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
Raf you are 100% correct. You actually reminded me that I forgot to mention that very fact, kudos. You can’t register a .au domain with them either. But then why would I bother - the registrar’s you can register a .au with are over priced in comparison! Personally for the majority of sites and especially personal blogs etc a .com, .net or other is fine.
GoDaddy is still a great registrar though. I believe in their product and I have got great service from them. For that reason I don’t hesitate to recommend them.
January 31st, 2008 at 1:19 am
I just thought I should mention that I do know the difference between a “Registrar” and a “Host.”
GoDaddy is both a domain Registrar and a Host, but GoDaddy can only register dot-US country-specific domains as it is a US-based Registrar. If you want to register say a dot-CA domain, you must go to a Canadian registrar. The same would go for a dot-AU or a dot-UK domain. I believe that GoDaddy is offering “free” hosting when you register a domain now.
More specifically, I am more interested in know what makes a good Host. With all the options available–bandwidth, storage space, Windoze-vs-Linux, PHP, SQL, SSL, etc–its hard to know what is better for the money and why. That was the intent or my original post.
Also, I would prefer to use a Canadian hosting company as I am a Canadian citizen and I would rather not pass more money down to the US if I can avoid it, despite the Canadian dollar being pretty much on-par or better than the US dollar at the moment.
January 31st, 2008 at 12:50 pm
@Herne: I am putting together some stuff on hosting (including a couple of Canadian) options for one of the upcoming shows (this is news to Dave). I’ve been looking for a Canadian hosting company for the last few months for much the same reason. As a result I’ve put together some criteria to consider.
January 31st, 2008 at 10:44 pm
@Mac Lab Rat: That’s great. I’ll be really interested in hearing and seeing what you’ve come up with. I’ve been given a couple recommendations by online friends, but most of them see too good to be true or they’re a bit evasive at where their servers are located. I don’t really want to set up my webspace and have my domain held hostage somewhere, nor do I want to be moving my domain from host to host every year in an attempt to find something decent. (And of course, I don’t want to spend an arm and a leg on domain hosting!)