Hi RossMan. Thanks for your detailed response. Lots of good information!
You're welcome, happy to help.
Back in the day when I got bit by the web hosting bug, began a 13 year+ (and counting) journey to research thousands of web hosts. Since web hosting is an (expensive) hobby for me I have several VPS (virtual private server), reseller and shared hosting accounts. I'm always researching new and established web hosts trying to find the perfect balance of reliability, performance and price - it isn't easy but it is possible.
In fact, I have registered and posted with WHT, and have chosen a domain and registered several names. Coincidentally, namecheap is the registrar I went went, so it's gratifying to see that you've endorsed them.
Here's the thread:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1381844
Another parallel bit of advice. I was told at WHT that justhost and many others were EIG, a company to stay away from. A link was provided listing all the webhosts that are actually EIG.
If you haven't already paid for a web host, you may want to consider another type of web hosting that's perfectly suited for multiple domains. Take a look at
reseller hosting which is awesome and my personal favorite type of hosting account.
First of all don't worry you don't have to resell anything. Basically you get a bucket of resources (disk space and bandwidth) and you assign resources to every domain. Perhaps you have 1 business web site, 2 hobby web sites, your family wants their own websites for their hobbies, your next door neighbor runs a candle business and you have some friends who want hosting as well. All these can easily be handled with a single resellers account, you manage all the hosted domains using WHM (web host manager). I already know what you may be thinking, this sounds great Ross but it's a little overwhelming and I'll look into it later. Remember you get a bucket of resources and how you use them is completely up to you. Do you only want to host two of your own domains for now and maybe host family/friends/clients in the future? You can do that now. If this sound remotely appealing, trust me, do it and you won't regret it. Here's a
reliable reseller in business for 10+ years for $72/yr which gives you:
20GB disk space
200GB bandwidth (per month)
Host unlimited domains, your only restraint is the system resources used.
Available Locations: Germany, EU, Los Angeles, CA ( Asia Optimized IP ) and Dallas, TX
FYI - you can do a shared hosting account now and upgrade to reseller later.
Awesome, WHT is like the wild west of web hosting and you can learn so much from lurking and searching for threads in the appropriate forums. Great choice on NameCheap.com and basically avoiding any EIG web host, now you only have to worry about:
1) Regarding NameCheap.com or any domain registrar, I would consider enabling their
Auto Renewal and
2FA features for convenience and security.
2) Find the right web host which it seems you're almost finished with.
3) Design, code or build web site and fill it with content.
4) Most importantly always
backup yourself, even though 99% of web hosts advertise a "best effort" to backup your files, always do it yourself. If you're like me, I'd rather automate the process to ensure everything is backed up for only
$4.99 per month. Yes just like with web hosting you'll need to research backup hosts as well. If you plan on having a simple static HTML web site you'll only need to backup every time you make a change and you can do it manually via cPanel control panel (provided by your web host).
Likely one of the above (#2 omitted). I'd say that the sitebuilder software would be my choice, but I'm still getting up to speed, so I have to spend some research time, as I realy don't know what I need or how your suggestions might suit them at this point.
I'm not sure why you'd choose a sitebuilder vs
pre-installed scripts. If you decide to go with a website builder, make sure before you invest hours of work, the web site can later be exported to another web host. Like you said you're still researching and I'm sure you'll find the right solution that works for your particular needs and budget.
I need forum software? If I had to guess, that would be for support?
Oops nevermind I misread your original post:
I'd really like a forum geared toward the procedural and technical ins and outs of setting up a website for business.
It definitely does (always lead to new questions and definitely helps!). Thanks for taking the time to post. You've introduced more elements I need to research, but that's a good thing. Getting the right info is more than half the battle IMO.
I'll be looking into some of what you've suggested this week. Again, thanks so much for your input.
You're welcome. Search, research, ask questions, rinse and repeat. Learn from others mistakes, it will save you considerable heart ache down the road.
