I'm not sure if I should just get a domain name, or look for paid hosting too?

[billabong7329]

Well my site is in my sig if it matters. I'm pretty serious about this. It was once a hobby, and definitley still is, but I'm beginning to put alot more effort into it and I think its time I get a domain name.

The thing is, I really like my freehost. So far its going great for me there. 100mb webspace, 30gb bandwidth a month. It doesn't support php and mysql which I would kind of like to learn in the future, thats probably the only down side.

The thing I'm wondering is if I should just get a domain name from godaddy.com, or if I should try and look for hosting on a different site and just sign up for that and buy a domain name from my host. I know a coupon code on dreamhost to get a one year membership for only $9.99, but I'm worried that if I'm not satisfied after the year then I might get stuck with another year of service for $100.

What do you think I should do?

[danielbruzual]

You won't be dissapointed with dreamhost or hostgator webhosting, but I would suggest going with godaddy which offers cheap plans and you can pay hosting per month so you are not stuck for an entire year with them if you don't like their service.

[clay15]

Nice site you have there. I would definitely move it to a paid hosting service. You can register a domainname at Godaddy and then go look for another host. Most (good) companies will allow you to use an existing domain name with their hosting packages.

[billabong7329]

well I just looked at hostgator. It seems the cheapest monthly payment plan requires to be payed all at once for the whole year, so basically the same thing as with dreamhost. It looks like I'll end up going with dreamhost then. Thanks alot =)

[mhdoc]

May I suggest you DON'T register you domain and buy your hosting from the same place. Lots of sad stories about domains held hostage when hosting companies get into trouble.

[billabong7329]

bahhhh now I don't know what to do after the last statement in this topic. Dreamhost creates a domain for you. Should I really worry about this or is it only in rare cases that it causes a controversey?

[danielbruzual]

bahhhh now I don't know what to do after the last statement in this topic. Dreamhost creates a domain for you. Should I really worry about this or is it only in rare cases that it causes a controversey?

Don't worry about it, things like that only happen in hosts like yahoo business, globat and 1 & 1, you should be ok if you register it at dreamhost.

[websiteideas]

Hostgator has cpanel and Fantastico which is very nice. Dreamhost has their own control panel which is not easy to use in my opinion.

[Correctus]

DH's Control panel is very easy to use, HOWEVER CPanel is ten times better

IT

[billabong]

You have my name :D

[agnivo007]

start with godaddy hosting and you'd get the domain @1.99 with it

[danielbruzual]

start with godaddy hosting and you'd get the domain @1.99 with it

I second that, and if you don't like GoDaddy hosting you can easily change nameservers and use the domain with another host (you only have to get two months of hosting to get the $1.99 domain)