Hosting Plans

There are thousands of companies online that offer hosting plans and domain registrations of varying quality, for varying prices. Over the years, I have used many different companies (some commercial and some free) and I have had varying degrees of success with them.

A good web host can offer many features (the main ones are the amount of space provided and the scripting languages supported) and be staked full of options (such as adding domains and content management systems), but a great web host, most importantly, offers good support. Good support is provided when the response is rapid (a full 24 hours at the most) and contains the correct information that is useful and relevant to the question.

Choosing the correct domain name for your website is crucial, as it needs to be related to the subject, easy to remember and it must send out the right message. Although, of course, with Wattersisere.co.uk I am a hypocrite. The company you choose is very important. Firstly they must offer the suffix you want (the country code, for example .co.uk) as it not only tells the customer about location, but about business type (.org for organisation). Secondly, the features must be correct for what you want, and once again the support provided is critical.

I advise using the following companies, though there are many more out there, some of which I have not come across yet:

  • For free web hosting, I recommend http://www.awardspace.com. The features are great (in fact, they are worth paying for) and there are no adverts.
  • For a commercial web host (one you pay for), I would recommend http://www.hostrocket.com. Not only are the features great, but the support is unparalleled and their prices are competitive.
  • For a free domain, I would use http://www.freedomain.co.nr. They offer a free .co.nr domain (www.yousitename.co.nr for example) and many options of how to display your webpage. In return all they ask for is a visible link back to them on the first page of your site.
  • For top level domains of all kinds (.com, .co.uk, etc) I would recommend using http://www.eurodns.com. They offer a very wide range of domains (at least all European ones, generic ones and some of the newer ones such as .mobi) and the support that they offer is great too.