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domain and webhosting recommendations
Hi, all, it's your non-tech-savvy idiot again...
Or maybe just tech-savvy enough to get me into a lot of trouble, but not enough to get me back out again.
Okay. I have a website (proudly hand-coded a couple of years ago, after much, much struggle and angst [g], and kept updated since). The domain name was purchased through GoDaddy, and costs me $15 a year, which I just renewed a couple of weeks ago before I realized I needed the second website. The site itself is hosted through my ISP, and costs me $10 a month on top of my regular bill. I have no memory of how I accomplished all this several years ago, except that it was ugly and frustrating and stretched my abilities pretty much to their limit. And exceedingly satisfying once it all finally worked.
For reasons I won't get into here, I really need a second website, with a different domain name. This would entail another $15 a year plus $10 a month if I do it the way I'm doing it now.
I'm told I can do this much more cheaply than I'm doing it right now, and that would be a really, really good thing. Almost $300 a year is way more than I need to be paying for this.
But I have no clue how to find a company that will provide this service at a rate I can better afford, with the amount of handholding I will need to get the domain names transferred and the files uploaded (actually, as long as they'll let me FTP the files using Windows File Manager, which is "open two windows, aim one at the files I want to move and the other to the FTP address, then drag and drop", I can do that part -- it's the setup and transfer that's over my head).
Bluehost was recommended to me, and at less than $30 a year for the whole thing for both websites they're certainly more reasonable than what I'm paying now, but when I went to ask some basic-to-me questions, it became very clear to me that they're not going to be willing/able to help me as much as I know I'm going to need to get everything moved and set up. Especially since I got cut off from the chat session before I was finished asking questions, and some of their own help webpages wouldn't load when I clicked on them.
Anyone have a webhosting company they love that can give me fast champagne help on a slow beer budget, and not get impatient with me when I politely hint that they're talking Swahili to me? I'm dubious about using GoDaddy for hosting as well as the domain name. No, I don't know why, but I am. I suspect it's the "we need to sell you a whole bunch of stuff you don't need" spiel every time I go to pay my annual bill, but maybe not.
Help?
Or maybe just tech-savvy enough to get me into a lot of trouble, but not enough to get me back out again.
Okay. I have a website (proudly hand-coded a couple of years ago, after much, much struggle and angst [g], and kept updated since). The domain name was purchased through GoDaddy, and costs me $15 a year, which I just renewed a couple of weeks ago before I realized I needed the second website. The site itself is hosted through my ISP, and costs me $10 a month on top of my regular bill. I have no memory of how I accomplished all this several years ago, except that it was ugly and frustrating and stretched my abilities pretty much to their limit. And exceedingly satisfying once it all finally worked.
For reasons I won't get into here, I really need a second website, with a different domain name. This would entail another $15 a year plus $10 a month if I do it the way I'm doing it now.
I'm told I can do this much more cheaply than I'm doing it right now, and that would be a really, really good thing. Almost $300 a year is way more than I need to be paying for this.
But I have no clue how to find a company that will provide this service at a rate I can better afford, with the amount of handholding I will need to get the domain names transferred and the files uploaded (actually, as long as they'll let me FTP the files using Windows File Manager, which is "open two windows, aim one at the files I want to move and the other to the FTP address, then drag and drop", I can do that part -- it's the setup and transfer that's over my head).
Bluehost was recommended to me, and at less than $30 a year for the whole thing for both websites they're certainly more reasonable than what I'm paying now, but when I went to ask some basic-to-me questions, it became very clear to me that they're not going to be willing/able to help me as much as I know I'm going to need to get everything moved and set up. Especially since I got cut off from the chat session before I was finished asking questions, and some of their own help webpages wouldn't load when I clicked on them.
Anyone have a webhosting company they love that can give me fast champagne help on a slow beer budget, and not get impatient with me when I politely hint that they're talking Swahili to me? I'm dubious about using GoDaddy for hosting as well as the domain name. No, I don't know why, but I am. I suspect it's the "we need to sell you a whole bunch of stuff you don't need" spiel every time I go to pay my annual bill, but maybe not.
Help?
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"◾Is your service easy to use? No.
Compared to the endless parade of hosts that provide tons of "one-click installs," one-size-fits-all web site templates, unlimited toll-free telephone support, and cookie-cutter control panels, our service is arcane and complex. We consider this a positive.
Our service is designed for people who are comfortable with Unix-based web hosting, including manipulating MySQL and files using command line tools. To get good results for nontrivial sites, our members need to understand how Unix file permissions and ownership work, and how they apply in a secure web hosting environment."
This is very much not me.
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I suspect they're trying to scare off folks who need database-driven sites and don't know one end of a database from the other; I'm also assuming that your website is static HTML/CSS and no databases and little to no scripting.
The fact that you are comfortable with drag-and-drop FTP puts you squarely into the "not enough to get you back out" category, I think...
I probably still know enough to be able to at least help you set up the transfer-away part for the domain.
There are three components to switching a website the way I think you want to do it, as I see it:
1. Making sure the website is duplicated on the new host.
2. Switching the domain to point at the new host.
3. Transferring registration of the domain to the new registrar.
My usual recommendation was to get the new hosting set up in parallel with the old hosting (pay for like a month of overlap) and make sure that the new host has its own set of nameservers. Then while at the original registrar, either swap to the new nameservers before transferring the domain, or have the new registrar set up to use the new nameservers upon transfer. Then at least 48 hours after everything has settled into place, decommission the old site.
Do you get mail at your domain? If you do, there's going to be a ~48 hour period where stuff settles out which could result in mail being delivered to either the old or new host when you flip over nameservers.
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And, yes, it's static for all intents and purposes. I make the occasional change to the content, but even my blog is housed elsewhere (WordPress.com).
I went to my account at GoDaddy last night and tried to find out the information that both Bluehost and Nearly Free Speech say I need to transfer the domain name, and couldn't find it anywhere. I suspect they make it difficult to find on purpose, but I don't know what to do about that.
Also, I have no idea how to switch the domain name to the new host.
I'm kind of scared to start the first step until I know I can handle the others, if that makes sense.
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I really liked a lot of my co-workers, including supervisors. Interacting with the vast majority of the customers was delightful and rewarding. The corporate policies and the loud minority of the customers made me weep under my desk.
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I'm posting this to the Bujold list, too. Maybe someone there will have an idea.