[HOWTO] Web Domain Registration service recommendation?
I'd like to register a domain name, and though I'd like to do it as
cheaply as possible, I don't want all that junk on my site. If I had
anything, I'd prefer to select my own.
There's no need for any junk at all, and domain registrations can be made very cheaply. Perhaps a primer would be useful, so you can sort out who you're paying for what.
I'll assume you want to register a domain name and have it hosted, so you can have a website and branded email, etc. There are three services needed:
Registration
============
This is the business of buying exclusive rights to an Internet domain name. Registrations are managed by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a private non-profit). ICANN licenses a limited number of registrars, who process registration requests, screen for duplicates, etc. Several of these registrars (notably TUCOWS) have resellers. The majority of outfits offering domain name registration services are resellers, not the registrar itself. For your purposes this is [generally] moot, but that's what's happening.
DNS
===
Domain Name Service is the next piece. Your domain registration record contains lots of administrative information: admin contact, technical contact, billing contact, date of registration, expiration date, etc. Another critical bit of information on the record are the names and/or IP addresses of the "name servers" that will be "authoritative" for your domain. This is the bridge to hosting.
Remember that domain names are a convenience measure, a mnemonic that saves humans from having to remember IP addresses. The Internet itself routes traffic based on IPs.
Suppose you browse or send email to `quillio.com`. To process your request, there must be a mechanism for reckoning what machine, by IP, handles requests for `quillio.com`, or we can't even get out of the driveway.
In the wink of an eye, your request is sent to one of the many nameservers on the Internet, the domain record is looked-up, and the request forwarded to whatever *other* nameserver is listed on the record as authoritative. When the request reaches the authoritative nameserver, the domain name is resolved to an IP (typically that of your hosting company) and your traffic is sent there.
This all happens really fast. You next get the wonderful page at Quillio.com that you asked for, or your mail is delivered or retrieved, etc.
Usually you're insulated from knowing this. The reseller you bought your domain registration through creates your domain record such that it resolves through nameservers the reseller controls, and lands your traffic at its own hosting servers.
In this way, domain name reselling is a come-on for hosting services.
You are completely at liberty to use separate registration, DNS, and hosting services. I keep these eggs in separate baskets; folks with only one domain to look after might consider doing registration and DNS with one provider and hosting with a second.
Hosting
=======
As mentioned, requests for your domain will resolve to whatever machine the domain record says it should. A proper registrar (again, probably a reseller, in fact) will provide a web application at its site that lets you change your domain record. While they may set it up initially to point at their own hosting servers, you can change hosts by altering the domain record.
Why would you want to? Price. GoDaddy.com, for instance, will register domain names for $8.99/yr (less during promotions). Network Solutions/Verisign still charges full freight -- $35/yr -- for .com addresses. That's absurd. Worse, NetSol deliberately makes it difficult to change your domain record to resolve elsewhere. That's just wrong.
As for the host, the first question to answer is what sort of technology you need. If you want to use a small CMS application to run your site (recommended), find out what the application's requirements are. MovableType, for instance, requires Perl and the ability to alter file permissions. Others, like WordPress, require pHp and MySQL. These sound like special requirements, but they're commonly available.
If you want to use FrontPage, you'll need a hosting provider that offers the FrontPage server extensions. That's also quite common.
You'll also want a host that you've positively determined to have a good reputation for uptime and support, and that's been in operation for a while.
Recommendation
==============
As much as it's wise to separate registration, DNS and hosting, I know of a provider that handles them all reliably, honestly and cheaply, has great service and support, and is not new to the market:
http://vervehosting.com/
http://vervehosting.com/shared.html
.com registrations are $15/yr, hosting as low as $5/mo, the feature package is robust, they've been around for years, and they respond to support tickets very promptly. Indeed, every ticket I filed over a three-year period was answered by "Christine". Christine *is* VerveHosting. Recommended highly as an all-in-one solution.
Myself, I use TextDrive for hosting (hosting for literate geeks, and the home of some very cool FOSS software developers), DNSMadeEasy.com handles my DNS, and the registrations are at whatever reseller I bought them through. Registering domain names is the simplest part, and you can do it solely on price -- as long as you steer clear of the Network Solutions/Verisign-types, who are over-priced *and* try to lock you in.
I am not new to this. Believe me, a crappy host or cantankerous registrar is enraging -- and I've used some crappy ones, or ones that turned crappy, or whatever. Once you go this route, the email and website *must* work or your reputation and business suffer.
http://www.quillio.com/item.php?id=88_0_1_0_M
Get other recommendations; this is only one. But do understand how things are bundled, and that you can un-bundle them any time -- though the outfit that sells you your first domain name probably won't say so.
As far as requiring advertising on your eventual website, serious providers make no such demand. Those that do will remove them if you choose a more expensive hosting package. But that's just up-sell. Stay away from them.
HTH
LQ
ps. This is long enough, but there are also fine points to choosing a domain name, the proper way to transfer files, etc.
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