Website Hosting

[standles]

All:

I am a complete noob (just did some research today) to this area.

I want to setup a website and have it hosted offsite from my computer.

I envision this

I register my 3 domain names I want

I find a hosting service and setup an account with them

I assign one Domain to that service. Lets say www.standles.com for the personal famly site.

I now setup 3 websites under that service.

1) USPSA Club website (nice website with photo gallery and forums)

2) Personal family website (vanillia website but with photo gallery)

3) Side Line Website (same as 1)

The other domain names are names only. I setup domain forwarding for www.uspsaclub.com to point to URL www.standles.com/uspsaclub/index.htm

I setup domain forwarding for www.sideline.com to point to URL www.standles.com/sideline/index.htm

I can also use domain masking to make www.uspsaclub.net forward never show the www.standles.net root.

Questions:

1) Is as I have envisioned it even possible or am I totally off track.

2) If this is possible then what reccomendations do you have for hosting services. I looked at godaddy and they seemd ok but alot of negative feedback on the net.

3) Is there an easier way to accomplish this?

Thanks for your help and pointers, Steven

[shred]

You can save a bit of effort by having the hosting provider do the domain name acquisition for you if you want.

I've used 1and1 internet for some hosting and no complaints. I think SG might still be doing a commission thing with them.

I use virtual hosting (have my own Linux box as a web server) to do the naming tricks-- many of the hosting providers will do that as well.

[BrianH]

godaddy.com

If you can manage to fish through their bullshit, they're reliable and affordable. They'll register your domains, host it, assign email accounts, all kinds of crap.

Edited January 6, 2006 by BrianH

[standles]

godaddy.com

If you can manage to fish through their bullshit, they're reliable and affordable.

Care to elaborate on the BS you have to fish through?

[Rob Boudrie]

godaddy.com

If you can manage to fish through their bullshit, they're reliable and affordable.

Care to elaborate on the BS you have to fish through?

He may be referring to the countless screens offering to sell you additional services.

Another reasonable cost hosting provider is www.pair.com. If you want a dedicated machine, they're always the server farm USPSA uses - www.ev1servers.net. If it's a USPSA club site, you can get space on the USPSA server by asking me nicely.

[warpspeed]

You might also look at ipowerweb.com . Very straight forward, reliable and reasonable pricing.

[j2fast]

One more for the mix is www.lunarpages.com, reasonable prices, go customer service, etc. I've had an account with them for about 2 years and never had any issues.

I use GoDaddy for purchasing and managing domains.

[Loves2Shoot]

Rob has generously given our club space and it has been very reliable.

[standles]

If you want a dedicated machine, they're always the server farm USPSA uses - www.ev1servers.net. If it's a USPSA club site, you can get space on the USPSA server by asking me nicely.

Thanks Rob. Initially it will be for the USPSA club only. At a point in the future however, it could morph in the gunclubs website with the other disciplines represented. So I will pass for now but I really appreciate the offer. If it turns out to be something different I will drop you a line.

Thank all the rest of you for your suggestions as well. I will do some more research on them and let ya know what I decide.

Steven

[Rob Boudrie]

Rob has generously given our club space and it has been very reliable.

"boudrie.com" is hosted on that server as well, and my wife uses the machine to get her email (perhaps the only "job benefit" of service as USPSA webmaster).

If the machine is down, I do not get the option of "worrying about it later"

[Shooter Grrl]

Websites - my second favorite topic

I recommend 1and1.com - and yes, I do get paid by them if you use my reference. I have a current web customer using godaddy.com and 1and1.com is much more user friendly. I also have a customer on ipowerweb.com and again, 1and1.com is an easier format to use. Also, though 1and1.com is a little higher priced - there are zero ads and popups. To me, that alone is worth paying the $12.00 domain fee and $4.95/month for their hosting.

As to your directory questions - yes, that's possible, but when you sign up for the hosting service and register the domains, you'll get space for each domain name, so there is really no reason for the redirects.

Feel free to email me offline or call my mobile - I'll be happy to answer your questions.

[Rob Boudrie]

One more thing - if you are planning on installing any canned software (forum packages, etc.) make sure the hosting environment supports the package you are using. The two most popular hosting environments are Windows Server w/ASP and Linux w/Apache-MySql-Perl.

Both can get the job done and deliver excellent results. If you're just hosting static pages, chances are you'll never even notice the difference.

Rob

[raz-0]

Hostgator isn't bad. Their datacenter is the planet, which is a pretty solidly run place.

however, there are a lot of web hosts out there that are perfectly fine.

My one word of warning is to NEVER register your domain with the same company you host with. Webhosting tends to be a type of business where they come and go a LOT. The attitude and general quality of business practices can fluctuate rapidly over time. It's best to not have your domain hanging out in limbo because your host decided to try to pull some BS when you wanted to cancel your subscription to their service.

As a domain registrar, godady has a decent rep for being cheap. I personally use domain direct as my registrar and host my sites elsewhere.This has saved me some headaches in the past.