Web hosting site, your best recommendation?

I've been considering this for a bit, and wanted to get the ball rolling finally. I'd like to have a website. I'm going to need one eventually next year when I have to design one for a class...but I'd like to get it up and running ahead of time. Problem is...there are so many places and so much advertising (especially with "non-partisan" review sites) that it all seems like commercials. I can't tell which is a good company to use and which is just another place to go.

So, those of you who have websites, who do you recommend? I plan to do the web design myself - would have to say I'm "functional" but can figure it out by using my old friend Google. (there is ALWAYS some 12-year old with advanced skills in something...I dunno how many Adobe AfterEffects videos I've learned from that were junior high kids...)

I'd like my website to be dual-purpose:

One side for coins, with the option to sell coins.
One side for dance/blog/drawing/photography work.

I'm sick of Facebook/Twitter...and intend for this to be a contact point between me and my friends...allowing me to get rid of these accounts.

Thanks in advance!

 

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For my coin collection site i use Godaddy (also use Fatcow for my other hobby site) for my webhosting needs. Pretty straight forward for Domain Registration and setting it up and designing it (website tonight). Added: i messaged you some details on web hosting providers.

 

Have you decided which platform are you going to use? Two most popular options are Microsoft's ASP and open source Apache/PHP+MYSQL on Linux. Another issue is choosing CMS (content management system), since you would probably prefer open source, easy to use packages with a lot of online support, instead of coding everything by yourself from scratch.

I would say that at this point you will do just fine with DreamHost's shared server package, unless you expect more than 10k visitors daily. They got excellent tech support and an OK uptime for shared hosting provider. I am using them since 2006 and since I did not cancel the account until now, it basically shows they`re doing great (I tried more than 10 different hosters over the years).

DO NOT use GoDaddy and HostGator, even if they give it for free.

 

I've used 1&1 for many years and have had no problems.

 

Thanks for the input so far, everyone. I've definitely read that customer service is the most important factor by far...

And I don't think I'll have over 10k visitors a day...lol...I seriously doubt there are even 10 people who need to check in on me each day. But I will need space for photos and videos.

Are there regulations for extensions? The name I want is available as a .org, but I do want to sell coins eventually...

 

You should take into consideration CPU or memory resource limits. Each shared server allows you to use certain CPU percentage, and if your website is consuming too much, it will show error message for some of the visitors. The rest (traffic and space for files) is usually unlimited.

You can use your .org for sales or anything else you want.

 

I'm actually not sure how much CPU/Bandwidth a site like mine would use...

The coins site would just need to host high-resolution photos.

The dance site would be a bit more intensive, with a blog, photos, videos...I suppose I could host them on YouTube and embed links. But eventually I would like to host my own videos (so I don't have to mess with ads.) Of course, by that point, I may know lots more about web hosting, and be able to make more informed decisions. And by that point, I may just need to have my own server.

 

Hi stldanceartist,
I have been a professional web developer for over 12 years. My suggestion is to use godaddy for your domain registration. As far as web hosting goes, i have been using http://dreamhost.com/ for all lower traffic sites (less then a few thousand hits a day). In the decade I have been using them, the sites have gone down one time for an hour. Their prices are very good, the control panel is exceptional, and the support is top notch. Storage, bandwidth, and databases are all unlimited. There are a ton of one-click installs like forums, stores, galleries, etc.. They will more than meet the needs for the website you described. You would only need the shared hosting package, and that's about $9 a month. If you have any questions or need assistance with anything, feel free to ask me.

-greg

 

Thanks gbroke!

You know, i just looked at your description (usually I'm just staring at your beauty of a German coin...) and saw "Naturally Toned." I guess if I had to describe myself, it would be "Blast White."

I like the idea of "unlimited," btw.

 

You can do all that and much more with just Wordpress and it's plugins. A lot of other options out there as well. Most modern popular CMS packages optimize memory/CPU usage.

You can move later, your own dedicated server and even VPS is a waste of money at this point (unless you got a serious budget for this).

 

Thanks Peter!

I think I'll go for aesthetically simple...but knowing my love of formatting and designs...it will probably spiral out of control in terms of complexity. I seem to remember crashing my MySpace page every other day (a decade ago when MySpace was still being used.)

 

I should also say "Thanks, Taxi" as well. No one gets left out. I've had other dance friends recommend Wordpress as well. Will have to take a look at it once I get done performing in a show this weekend and running a conference here at school next week. Ah, time.

"Would that this hoodie were a time hoodie!"

 

How is this any different than HostGator? And HostGator is less costly, and uses cpanel...

 

[duplicate post, sorry]

 

why not HostGator?

 

Support responds after a day or two, plenty of downtime for some users when others manage to see the website just fine (you`ll never even know it unless you monitor your site 24/7 and report to support about this). Load management system is unbalanced, 1 user might hog all the resources and until it is solved, other shared hosting users websites are showing 500 message.

Overall, a lot of negative experience. There is a chance they got much better recently, but I wouldn't know.

GoDaddy's domain registration is fine BTW, its their hosting that sucks. Plenty of unexplained downtime, every little load on the website takes it down since they kill connection when load reaches certain limit. Same thing going on with HostGator.

 

If you really want to learn good programming/webdesigning skills while building your website, I'd suggest not using PHP and going with something like Ruby or Python. Also, you may want to find a host that allows SSH (arvixe.com provides this, it's getting rare nowadays from host providers unless you go with a virtual server which is going to drive your monthly costs to 10x or more) connection to update and program from the command line, so you are not dependent on insecure FTP connections from your own host to the server it's hosted on. My only real advice though is, do not use ASP or Microsoft OS as your backend, you'll spend more time keeping it secure than dedicating to your website building.

You can get decent hosting though for about $5-$10 a month with unlimited disk space and or bandwidth.

 

Who said it was? How would I know? Simply stating what I use. I haven't tried every host out there....

 

Thanks for the input. So far I haven't encountered such with HostGator, and my sites are monitored 24/7. I'll keep my eyes peeled, though, indeed.