Host Gator, Go Daddy and WordPress Explained

Question: I am little bit confused about buying a domain, web hosting and web management.  Please tell me detailed difference about these three websites with their complete functions

Answer:

There are basically 2 components to getting a website online.  1)  You need a domain name from a domain name registrar.  2)  You need a web hosting account from a web hosting company to host the files for your website.  Let’s start from the beginning.

Getting A Domain Name

First you have to buy a domain name from a good registrar and that will NOT be goDaddy.  When you buy the name on your own from a registrar…

• You’re able to shop around and get the lowest prices.  I use NameCheap.
• Names are purchased for a term like 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, etc.  You decide.  Sometimes they have deals for longer terms.
• You own the name.  You control the name.  You make all decisions about the name.  You want that.  This is the ideal way to purchase a name.
• You can also sell the name to another party.  Some registrars have a domain name selling service right on their site where you can list your name for sale.  You set the price and they take, for example, 10% of the sale price as a commission.

OPTIONALLY, you can get a free domain name when you buy web hosting.  This, in my opinion, is a bad choice because…

• You get to pick your own domain name, but…
• The web hosting company gives you use of the free domain name in exchange for purchasing web hosting.  Sometimes it’s free for the life of your hosting account, other times it’s free only for the first year.
• You do NOT own the domain name, the hosting company does.  Bad!
• If you find out you don’t like the hosting service, you either have to abandon the domain name or if you want to keep it, you have to buy the name from the hosting company and they have to transfer ownership to you.  It will be at a higher price than you would have paid had you done it on your own to begin with.
• If you buy it back from them, you’re stuck with the registrar company they used unless you transfer it to another.  Than means another fee because you’re essentially registering it.  And no, you will NOT get credit for any time left at the old registrar.
• Some web hosting companies ignore your request to transfer the name to you.  They own it, so they don’t have to sell it to you.

A Word About go Daddy

You will seriously pay too much money if you buy a domain name from GoDaddy.  Not only that, if you want privacy protection, that’s another $9.99 A YEAR!  GD also sells web hosting, but again, you do NOT want to buy web hosting from GD.  You’ll seriously pay too much for that, too.  Plus, they nickel and dime you to death with upsells and their control panel is far too complicated.  Click here to compare NameCheap vs GoDaddy.

Getting Web Hosting

HostGator is a web hosting company, one of the best.  When you buy a domain name, you’ll set the nameservers on your domain name registrar account to point to the web hosting company.  When you buy web hosting, they’ll give you the server names.  HostGator doesn’t give away free domain names, but if you buy a domain name from them, it will cost you $15.  That’s too much.  Plus, you’ll be stuck with their registrar.

No matter where you decide to buy web hosting, buy the domain name on your own first.  Then on the web hosting order form, you have a choice to accept a free domain name OR indicate that you already own a domain name and you’ll be using it instead.

About WordPress

You said you wanted to know the difference about “these three websites”.  With regards to WordPress, there are two flavors - free and self-hosted.

Free WordPress.com

WordPress.com is the free blogging site where you’re allowed to create a blog for free.  The name will be something like johnsblog.wordpress.com.  You will not be able to monetize it - no advertising like Adsense, no affiliate links and no creating bridge pages to link to other pages that do have affiliate offers.  If you try it, you’ll be suspended.  It’s happened to me.  You will not be able to upload your own themes.  You’re stuck with what they offer you.  You will not be able to upload plugins.

Self-hosted WordPress

WordPress is blogging platform that is also available for installation on your own web hosting account.  Almost all web hosting companies already have the WordPress software on the server, accessible from within your web hosting control panel.  With HostGator, you will find it in the cPanel control panel in the Software section.  Click on the Fantastico Deluxe icon and you’ll find it in there, plus all kinds of other software to install.  All you have to do is tell it which domain you want to install it on.  (With HG, you can host unlimited domain names.)  There is nothing to upload.  If you read anything about downloading WordPress from WordPress.org and then manually installing it to your web hosting account, ignore it.  That won’t apply to you.

I would highly recommend using WordPress to build your website.  You’ll have a ton of free themes and plugins to use.  Unlike traditional website building were you have to buy a program like Microsoft Expressions or Adobe Dreamweaver, install it on your computer, build your site, then upload it to the web server, WordPress is already on the server and it’s free.  You just log into your WordPress Dashboard and start creating new posts and pages.  There’s no navigation or templates to mess around with.  WordPress does it all.

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