I want to set up an Internet based company.

Loaded_Bachelor

I wonder if anyone can help with a couple of key questions please?

One of the first things I want to do is to register and secure a domain name/names.

I have found the following company, http://easily.co.uk/ who offer domain registration but just wondered what they are actually doing for the money I would pay them? Am i right in saying that nobody actually owns a domain name if its not currently being used or reserved or do these domain registration companies own the domain names and then sell them on?

I am a bit confused as to how the concept works.

Also as far as web hosting and web site building and maintenance go should I be looking to do this all as one package with a company such as https://www.easily.co.uk or is it more wise just to gain domain names from them and then shop around for a separate web site building and hosting company.

I would greatly appreciate any advice on the above and also some recommendations as to some web sites or literature that advise on building your own web based business.

Thank you.

savvy

Hi Loaded
There's quite a bit of this advice/discussion on the Small Business and Charity board, have you looked there at all??
savvy

ukbill69

Id suggest getting a software package like frontpage and gettting frontpage hosting. Easy and most hosting compaines offer frontpage hosting at no extra charge. I know getting a copy of frontpage can be a lot, but well worth it. I use session9.co.uk for my web hostingm there are lots of compaines out there, maybe shop around and see what might be best for you. As for domain names, you own the domain name once registered for the time that you register it for. Im not sure but you have to watch out for compaines that dont offer you to transfer your domain or use other providers for your web hosting.

tigermatt

I am in the process of designing a website for a local business. They had acquired their domain name with a different hosting company to the one that I would usually register domain names with, but I found Catalyst2 (their hosting company) very good.

I have find a cheap hosting package with Catalyst2 for £14.09 a year. (It is running on Redhat Linux) It has support for Frontpage Extensions and PHP, Perl. It also says it includes a "Powerful Control Panel", subdomains, 250MB of disk space and 1 email mailbox. Also, it says it has an Auto Installer of osCommerce (eCommerce software), phpBB (Bulletin board software) plus other features.

Even though I wouldn't normally go through this company, I would recfommend them for a small site, especially for the support of Frontpage Extensions at no extra charge. I would also recommend it for the software that comes with it - It would allow you to setup a forum and eCommerce store without any programming knowledge at all. I think it is all done via wizards in the control panel.

Anyway, here is the link to the specific package I am talking about. http://www.catalyst2.com/services/hosting/linux/index.asp It is the mega - deal. There are more, better packages, but they start charging per month, so the mega deal is probably better for a small site.

matty_c608

Hmmm, DreamHost is my current host, and although american, im very satisfied.

I managed to get a domain, 2500MB Disk Storage, PHP SQL Frontpage etc, 120GB Bandwidth per month, all for $10!!!

Usually it costs $10 a month, but I used a discount code (7777) to bring the price down to just $10.

How ever that code no longer works!

But yeah, just shop around!!

Matt.