Website advice

[Sailor80]

Anyone on here familiar with how domain names work? I'm helping a friend of mine with a small business project and we're a bit confused about which domain name to choose. Looking at this Domain Registration - Register Domain Names and Domain check with 1&1 it looks like you get more of a choice than just .com/.net etc. Which is best, your first choice of name with a less well-known extension, or a different name/hypehsn etc and .com? Is there much difference?

Thanks in advance.

 

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[Coldshuz]

The extension (ie .com .org .net, .gov) really have no meaning or restrictions as to which you chose.

early on, .com was for commercial, .org was for non profit and .net was an indication of a larger network. Since they've opened up a slew of them.. ie. .tv. At one time, they had hoped to move all adult content sites to a .xxx extention.

.com is the most common for general purposes, however, finding a suitable name can be tough. Then again.. if you made say.. a yahoo.tv, chances are people would eyeball that as yahoo.com. As an example, try going to whitehouse.gov. then whitehouse.com. This is an example of this type of issue. FYI, whitehouse.com is/was an adult themed site. Haven't been back since I first made this mistake some time ago.

 

[Chadeaux]

Anyone on here familiar with how domain names work? I'm helping a friend of mine with a small business project and we're a bit confused about which domain name to choose. Looking at this Domain Registration - Register Domain Names and Domain check with 1&1 it looks like you get more of a choice than just .com/.net etc. Which is best, your first choice of name with a less well-known extension, or a different name/hypehsn etc and .com? Is there much difference?

Thanks in advance.

Free advice worth much denero -

STAY AWAY FROM 1&! (AND EVEN MORE IMPORTANTLY ) STAY AWAY FROM GODADDY!!!

You will actually end up paying them so they can own your site.

If you want good results, find a local web developer and supply them with CONTENT. You won't regret it. Or you can PM me and I'll be glad to take a look (even though I'm not local ... but I do work cheap as in "questions answered at no charge") as the web allows this work to be done from any place in the world. The problem with the big sites is, you have no experience, they only have paid question answerers ... and you are the payer. Best of all, paying doesn't guarantee the answer fits your situation or needs.

Domain name purchase? www.namecheap.com (Domain name is domain name - it's who you pay to register it that counts) They don't raise the cost of renewing your domain name either, so no need to seek another name next year.

A great looking site that does not operate properly is a failure. A site that looks good and has poor SEO is a failure (BTW, the SEO help the "build it yourself" people offer is a big PDF file you can read). Also important, if the site looks "amateurish", even with great SEO, folks leave right away.

Hosting? Webhostingbuzz.com gives me 750 Gigabytes of storage (and with new accounts, they sometimes offer a free domain name or two that you can choose) for under $80/year. Every year my storage increases, and after two years (original purchase and one renewal) you get a loyalty discount. I actually host my sites and several sites I do for my business.

CONTENT: Whether you do the site, or someone else builds is, YOU need to provide the content (Pictures, stories, sales pitch, testimonials, videos, etc.). Those big hosting companies won't do it for you, and a small operator will need that from you to make your site a success. Have a vision and be willing and able to express it to the designer so he/she can show it to the world.

Hope things work out for you.

 

[pat-tekker-cat]

As an example, try going to whitehouse.gov. then whitehouse.com. This is an example of this type of issue. FYI, whitehouse.com is/was an adult themed site. Haven't been back since I first made this mistake some time ago.

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WELL, don't ever click on the site for Live Nude Puppies. LOL! I thought there would be a webcam with puppies!
I had to click on it! I kept thinking, "well all puppies are nude aren't they, I gotta see this"!
It took hours for my ISP to get the virus out of my computer!

Thanks for the advice Chad.

 

[Sailor80]

Ha, live nude puppies!
But great advice everyone, thanks for taking the time to answer. I'd assumed paying a web developer to do it would be a lot more expensive but I'll look into that.
Thanks again.

 

[Chadeaux]

Ha, live nude puppies!
But great advice everyone, thanks for taking the time to answer. I'd assumed paying a web developer to do it would be a lot more expensive but I'll look into that.
Thanks again.

I do web design as a "hobby business", and there are lots of folks who are qualified to do great work that work cheap.

For instance, I will design a website with up to 10 pages for $500.00 and host it for one year on "my" server at Webhostingbuzz (well, it's mine as long as I pay the rent). I pay all taxes on my income, but I don't do it for profit so much. I do itto support my computer habit (buy new software and hardware).

You'll likely end up paying that much in a year as with the "do it yourself" sites, EVERYTHING has a price tag on it ... like the same scripts you can use for free if you REALLY did it yourself (using a web page design program with some hand coding or by hand coding the entire site).