Domain and Hosting

[faisal]

How do I get a domain and what's a reliable but not too costly place to host a website...
Getting one designed for myself.

Thanks.....

[Rhys]

I have a separate domain and host. My hosting is done by easy internet in the UK. My domains are by 123-reg in the UK. Neither is particularly cheap but they are good and reliable.

[James DeRuvo DHQ]

Faisal, many pros use SmugMug to store and sell their photographs. It's a one stop shop and does an excellent job. But you may also want to check out SquareSpace (http://www.squarespace.com/). They have excellent customizable templates and are scalable as you get more and more traffic.

[jcon]

I too have a separate domain and host. I purchased the domain from GoDaddy and I have it hosted here... http://www.ultrawebsitehosting.com/

Very good pricing and they offer plenty of features. I pay 5 bucks a month for them to host. They do offer a free hosting plan, but its very stripped down.

FWIW, I dont know that many pros that use smugmug. You definitely want your own web adress and hosting if you want to be taken serious.

[K1W1]

FWIW, I dont know that many pros that use smugmug. You definitely want your own web adress and hosting if you want to be taken serious.

If you purchase the upper level pro accounts on Smugmug you can completely customise your site to look personal but with Smugmug doing the back end infrastructure just like any other hosting service except that theirs is geared towards photography.

This (http://fatspike.com/) is a Smugmug hosted site and so is this (http://www.moonriverphotography.com/).

In what way are they unprofessional or unable to be taken seriously?

[Anthony]

You want to decide what you want e.g. database as some companys are cheap until you add a database etc. on.
I would keep away from windows servers as you need the admin to change permissions and a lot of host do not like doing it. Also php is a great tool and a lot of windows servers didn't use it but use ASP; even if they do support it there could be problems; although this may have changed now.
Again having your own site and domain name means you can have your own email addresses - in my case 20 and my wife, daughter, mother and sister all have one each.

[James DeRuvo DHQ]

The problem with those $5.00 a month sites is that your site is on a shared server with literally hundreds or maybe even thousands of other sites. If one gets a lot of traffic, it slows down all the others.

[Rhys]

If you purchase the upper level pro accounts on Smugmug you can completely customise your site to look personal but with Smugmug doing the back end infrastructure just like any other hosting service except that theirs is geared towards photography.

This (http://fatspike.com/) is a Smugmug hosted site and so is this (http://www.moonriverphotography.com/).

In what way are they unprofessional or unable to be taken seriously?

I just tried both sites and had a message that smugmug was down for maintainance. 'nuff said!

[K1W1]

I just tried both sites and had a message that smugmug was down for maintainance. 'nuff said!

And I just checked both sites (and I have cleared my cache before I checked) and they both work perfectly. Any site anywhere in the world can be off line for short periods even Google, Microsoft and Apple have all had occasions where their sites are unavailable so what's your point or are you just trying to justify your position as usual?

[James DeRuvo DHQ]

Well, everyone has their favorites and if they're financially invested as well, of course they'll defend it and try and get others to go that route in order to validate their own decisions. Bottom line is, that you go with what works.

[freedom1]

I registered my domains with godaddy. I have been using MDDHosting for 6 months for hosting and have experienced no downtime and excellent support.
http://www.mddhosting.com/

For more info on web hosting check out the forums at http://www.webhostingtalk.com/
You can get all of your questions answered there.

Do your homework before signing up for hosting. A lot of fly by night hosts out there willing to take your money and give little to nothing in exchange.

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

If you were in Australia Faisal I could recommend one.

$10 a month, very reliable and easy

[faisal]

Anyone have any experience with dreamhost.com??

[shahmatt]

I have used Godaddy for registering my domain as well as hosting. I use the "Economy" hosting plan for around $4.99/month i think. Its decent, my site loads at a reasonable speed (not extremely quick), considering the galleries it has to load up.

[wirehunt]

I've looked into smugmug myself. The only reason I didn't go with them is they are not really setup properly for international buyers or sellers (yet). I do know of several that do use it though and they all seem to like it.