Webhosting and Domains
Like I said, choosing a good webhost and domain registrar is crucial to building a successful web presence. If you foundation is weak, it will all come crumbling down. I have a lot of experience with different webhosts, so at least you can take my trials and learn from them without it costing you the cash. Believe me, you will want to use some of these services.
My Top 10 Web Hosts
1. IXWebhosting – Simply the best. This company really has their act together. Those who know the Internet know that IXWebhosting.com is the standard by which all other web hosts measure themselves. For $4.95 per month, you get 500MB web space, free domain registration, free account setup, 1,000 pop email accounts, 1,000 FTP accounts, professional website tools, unlimited 24/7 technical support, strong application functionality like CGI-BIN, Perl, PHP, WAP, FrontPage, and Dreamweaver. They have a web-based control panel that allows you to control and admin your website from any Internet connection. Also, they have a zero-risk 100% money-back guarantee. In addition, a 99.9% uptime guarantee makes this an unbeatable combination!
2. LunarPages – Their $7.95 per month plan gets you free account setup, toll-free telephone support, 800MB web space, unlimited email, web mail, PHP, Python, PERL, CGI-BIN, MySQL, FrontPage, Dreamweaver, FTP and more. There is also an online control panel, parked domains, subdomains, and SSI in addition to a 30-day money back guarantee. They have many more plans if this just isn’t enough!
3. Dreamhost – Their $9.95 per month plan (Level 1)gets you one free domain registration, 15 subdomains, 800MB web space, 40GB of space, 60 email accounts, web mail, PHP, full Unix shell (tough to find), CGI, SSI, Miva Merchant license, free Dreambook account, MySQL, 24 hour email support, and of course FTP access. It’s also risk free because they offer 91 day money back guarantee! Dreamhost has a very good reputation for being dependable. We all know we need the dependability to build a strong foundation for our sites.
4. IPowerWeb – The Business Pro package is their most popular. It is $7.95 per month and offers 800MB storage, 400 email accounts, SSL, CGI-BIN, MySQL, free account setup, free bonus package (nice), subdomains, PERL, MySQL, PHP, SSI, FrontPage, web hosting control panel, shopping cart, agora cart, paypal cart, FTP manager, and lots of plugins. You also get a $50 credit at Overture.com, which is nice if you need a little help promoting your site.
5. GlobalHost – If you can pony up the yearly payment, their budget package comes out to $9.95 per month. With the budget package you get a web-based control panel, FrontPage extensions, webalizer traffic stats, 5 POP3 email accounts, web-based email, SSL, MySQL, and PHP. They also offer ecommerce services, dedicated servers, and with the more premium packages, a 7 minute support guarantee!
6. EasyCGI – You can get some excellent hosting here. Their Basic package comes out to $7.96 per month and offers 300MB of space, 10 FTP accounts, CGI-bin, PHP, ASP, ASP.NET, 20 email accounts, and an Access database. Their Advanced package has 1000MB of space, 50 FTP accounts, unlimited email accounts, and also adds MySQL, SQL Server 2000, and daily WebTrends reports, all for $21.56 per month when paid yearly.
7. ApolloHosting – With no setup fee and $6.96 per month, ApolloHosting.com offers an incredible punch. You’ll get 200MB of space, 99.9% uptime guarantee, Virtual Control Panel, free design software, FrontPage extensions, extra FTP logins, CGI-Bin, MySQL database, PHP, Perl, SSI, CRON management tools, 10 POP3 Email accounts, and a ton of multimedia features. There is also free domain transfer and domain parking when you sign up.
8. StartLogic – $7.50 per month gets you a very nice package at StartLogic.com. You’ll get 1000MB (1 Gig) of space, free domain registration, unlimited email accounts, free account setup, CGI-Bin, PHP, Perl, MySQL, SSL, SSI Management, log files, FrontPage extensions, Shopping carts for your ecommerce business, web-based control panel, webmail, web builder templates and site building materials, PHP Nuke, Blogger, Agora Shopping cart, $50 credit with Overture (very nice), and to top it all off: 30 money back guarantee. You don’t like the service? No problem, no risk!
9. MidPhase – Paid annually, their Mega-PHASE plan comes out to $7.95 per month. The features you get in this plan are incredible: 1500MB (1.5 Gig!) of space, 500 email accounts, customer and tech support 24/7, 99.98% uptime guarantee, subdomains, webalizer statistics, raw log files, web-based control panel, and multiple FTP accounts. These plans are very developer friendly too. They all have PERL, PHP, JSP, Tomcat, MySQL, Cron jobs, MIME, MX records, CGI Wrapper, CGI-bin, and more. You can get free domain transfer, phpBB2 and phpBBS, Agora shopping cart, and free domain registration.
10. Yahoo! – With Yahoo hosting, you get one of the highest profile names on the Internet, and they stand behind it. Their starter plan is $11.95 per month and you get the account setup and domain registration totally free. You also get 10 email addresses, 50MB of space, and 24/7 toll free telephone support. Yahoo! SiteBuilder is probably the industry’s best web design package, and you get it free with your account.
and one more…
11. Infinology – You get free account setup if you pay annually. On top of the free account, your monthly cost comes out to $6.95 per month. They pack in the features. With the Executive Plan Web Hosting (only available through the link above!), you’ll get 700MB of space, 700 email accounts, ColdFusion MX support, CGI-Custom, CGI-Bin, FrontPage extensions, PHP, SSI, MIME, SSL, Perl, MySQL, PostGress SQL, Site Studio, web-based control panel, webalizer stats, toll-free 24/7 personal consultant, toll-free tech support, and a 30 day money-back guarantee.
Site building software does everything for you
On top of everything I just recommended, there is one package that tops just about anything out there when it comes to getting your Internet business up and running. Site Build It is a software package that has everything including domain registration, domain hosting, submission to search engines, as well as optimizing your web pages for search engines so that they will be at or near the top. There is really much more in Site Build It than I can say here. You really should take a serious look at this, especially if you are a beginner at this.
Deleted Domains
You might get lucky with the domain you were looking for, but if you are like most of us, you will find out that most common word domains are simply gone. Fortunately, domains expire by the thousands every day. DeletedDomains.com is a really cool resource for finding great domains that have just expired. Best part: It’s free. Ripe for the picking!