Your own web site

[SecTrainer]

I'm looking to start a webpage for my company. Is GoDaddy a good and reliable place to start the process?

It's not so much where you start as where you end up. A website is a lot like an onion, with many layers of functionality. Throwing up a page or two can be done within about 10 minutes and at that level of functionality it really doesn't matter all that much who you use. Just about any "web-hoster" can help you with everything from domain name registration to templates for your web pages...you just pay them a few bucks and provide some content.

This is fine for personal websites, for instance. For business websites - even for a small business - this level of functionality is NOT satisfactory as it will not leverage the power of the Internet to the degree that is possible with just a little more thought and some additional capabilities.

I'd suggest that at the very least you open a private conversation with someone like Nate Corbier on this forum to get some ideas. You might be amazed at what can be done for a very reasonable cost to give you a website that will make your public image shine through your website.

Nate can also discuss with you certain issues concerning website security, backup, connection type (backbone), speed and the like which are far more important for any business website than they would be for a simple "personal" website. I'm not just talking SSL here, but protection from site defacement, denial-of-service attacks, server uptime, physical server-site protection, and many other issues. If you don't know what you're doing, you could easily wind up with your site hosted from some back alley in Rangoon.

Start from the beginning by thinking about the end...what do you want your website to do for you? With a little planning, it can be so much more than simply the Web version of a Yellow Page ad that does little more than say "Well, here I am!" and leaves your website visitors thinking "Yeah? So what?"

[N. A. Corbier]

Thanks. While I have "low prices" and "give away a lot of features," its mainly because I don't believe people need to buy what is free to me. Such as additional MySQL databases, email addresses, subdomains, etc.

A big thing to ask is, "Ok, I have 'a website,' now what?" This is why we combine hosting and design services whenever the client wants us to, because there is a learning curve for website design. The average website created with a GoDaddy/Yahoo/MSN/Whatever page editor looks, well, horrible. I'll be blunt. The tools are designed to throw content up quickly.

While this may be good for a homepage, for a business like a security company, people are going to base their perceptions of your entire business based on... well... what's on that screen, within 5 seconds, at the top of the "fold."

The "fold" is the portion of the site shown at 800x600 or 1024x768. Most people will not go past the fold unless they are engaged by the site. Look at the forum posts about "God, that website... horrible!" and remember that those were professionally done sites.

I keep a copy of SiteBuilder on every hosted account for people who want to "go it alone," and design a site. Considering that my basic package is $3.50 a month, with that giving you 50 MB of space and 1 GB of bandwidth, you get unlimited email addresses, cpanel control panel, instant install of a lot of website software like Joomla or Wordpress or Noah's Classifieds through Fantastico, and a "ridiculous level of support" as one of my clients put it... Yeah.

Touching on security... There are things to consider with any shared host, which is what everyone around here is. If some idiot's gaming clan website running phpBB or PHPNuke gets hacked, every other site can be hacked. Fact of life with shared hosting. The upshot is, I have backups on call of every website we host. My upstream provider can get a site back online within 2 hours. I've seen hosts take two days of bitching just to tell you, "we don't keep backups, sorry."

Another important thing to remember is that when you buy web hosting, you are buying some hard drive space on someone's server, a fixed amount of transfer (upload/download for people to view the stuff on your site), and that's about it. You will get an email referring to your control panel login, your control panel password, and that'll be about it.

So, where do you go from there? The "Site Tonight" thing that renders horrible websites, or with a custom or templated website from a design shop?

[publicsafetyred]

.com domain registrations are on sale for $6.95 per year. .info is still only $0.99 for a year.

[LPCap]

Who's SecurePayNet?

I think this whole thing is a pyramid scheme. You sell for someone who gets money based on what you sell, and then you try to get people to sell so you get money. Correct me if I am wrong.

N.A.

Check out this link: Forum discussion on Securenetpay.

http://www.ozzu.com/ftopic61295.html

[LPCap]

Anybody can become Wild West Domains Resellers and it is really easy to run, because you do not need nor to write website , nor to handle support - everything is done by Wild West Domains. All you need to do is just to bring customers to your store.

Make your decision.

[N. A. Corbier]

I think this whole thing is a pyramid scheme. You sell for someone who gets money based on what you sell, and then you try to get people to sell so you get money. Correct me if I am wrong.

N.A.

Check out this link: Forum discussion on Securenetpay.

http://www.ozzu.com/ftopic61295.html

This is pretty standard, actually. I'll explain how my own company works.

1) We buy reseller hosting from a web hosting company, who buys entire servers from another company called a "datacenter." I lease space and bandwidth, then resell the bandwidth that I leased at a higher price (Well, I'm supposed to....) ALL this does is provide people with space and bandwidth. This does not provide them with a website, just a place to put it. Same with PublicSafetyRed's hosting offerings.

2) We sell custom web design services. This means that I will sit down, do all the graphics, do the flash (or have someone else in the company do the Flash), figure out color schemes, and take the content a client submits and make page(s) out of them. This is done by us, and only us. This outputs a directory and a bunch of files. You need hosting to put this site on.

3) We sell "website" and "flash" templates. These are templates that someone else has done, which we offer to our customers. These can be modified by us to actually use your content and logos, or can be altered by someone else. If you want us to modify them or put your content in, you tell us what template number and we purchase it, modify it, and charge you for our services and the template fee. If you just want it, buy it, you get a .zip file, its yours.

4) We sell strategic consulting, which means we'll help you figure out what the hell you're doing and which options are good. This is obviously done in-house.

As you can see, I buy my hosting from someone, then resell it. I offer someone else's templates as well as some of my own, and offer to modify it for you. I also do some other stuff like Print Media Services and will be getting into that full blown soon (to include printing and shipping services), and the usual assortment of technical security stuff.

I wouldn't call what PublicSafetyRed is doing as a pyramid scheme. Its more like a turn-key web store. While my website doesn't look the best (I dislike how the template sales stuff doesn't match my own site), no one can guess who my upstream is by looking at the site.

[publicsafetyred]

My registration service is much like most. It is in no way a pyramid scheme; I just want to sell you domain registrations and hosting fairly. It is a turn-key website from another business. I did my homework and this business allows me to set my price somewhat and they are very well known to have good customer service with others. They were also recommended by friends for privacy and security of transactions, the last think I would want to promote as a security professional is something that might lead to identity theft.

There is not much special about my service, but I am really trying to keep my prices very low and I do allow all the freebies like free email and such. I do provide hosting service, but if you need professional website design talk with Cobier and his company. Just please consider my company when you want to register a domain. Thanks.

[N. A. Corbier]

Hey, Red. I already have a reseller account through GoDaddy. If buy a domain with you, do I need a separate account, or will my GoDaddy account work? Also, do you have any control over support, or is it just buying through GoDaddy with your site as a gateway?

[publicsafetyred]

Hey, Red. I already have a reseller account through GoDaddy. If buy a domain with you, do I need a separate account, or will my GoDaddy account work? Also, do you have any control over support, or is it just buying through GoDaddy with your site as a gateway?

You do need a separate account and I can customize the support, but I chose to have the company handle it, heck they even provide over-the-phone support which is rare.