Registering your domain name with a Web host

Once you have settled on a domain name for your online business, and ensured that it has not been registered in the Network Solutions database by someone else, then your are ready to register it as your own. However, before you register your domain name, you should select a Web hosting service for your Web site. By selecting a Web hosting service in advance, you will not have to worry about moving your domain name to a Web host later on. Some Web hosting services that will register your domain name are shown in the following table.

Web hosting company

register.com

Verio Web Hosting Services

DellHost

You should also be aware that in order to register your domain name you will be required to provide certain details about your business. This includes a contact name, address, phone number, etc. Therefore, it is suggested that you at least have a different mailing address and phone number than your principal residence because this information is readily accessible to anyone on the Internet.

Thinking about getting a free domain

Most of this discussion has an implicit assumption that you will register a domain name, like www.yourbiz.com, with Network Solutions or another sanctioned registration service. By making this assumption, it is implied that you will register and "pay for" your own domain name and get a Web hosting account to publish your Web site. Your cost to register a domain name will be about $70, and depending on the type of account you get, your Web hosting fees will be $25 or more per month.

However, as you learn more about publishing your Web site on the Internet, you will come across many offers to publish your Web site for free. If you already have a dial-up account with an Internet Service Provider, like America Online, then you may have seen advertisements like "publish your own Web site for free." Unfortunately, in order to take advantage of these offers, you will have to include the service's top level domain as part your online business name. In other words, your online business name will be a sub-subdomain to the service provider.

For instance, if you wanted to publish a Web site with Max Pages, a popular free Web hosting service, your online business name would look something like www.maxpages.com/yourbiz. The tradeoff is deciding whether you want a free Web site that requires you to include an advertisement for another business, like Max Pages, within your own online business name, or be autonomous and pay for your own domain name and Web hosting service.

The main advantage of a service like Max Pages is that it is free. Once you are connected to the Internet with a dial-up account, you can get a URL and create a Web site for no additional charges. Some of the disadvantages of these free services include:

• Your URL (www.maxpages.com/yourbiz) will be long
• Your URL will be hard to spell
• Your URL will be difficult to remember
• Your flexibility in Web site design will be limited -- normally you must use their design tools
• Your reporting capabilities (tracking visitors to your site) will be limited or non-existent
• You may be required to display advertisements you cannot control

Although there are numerous disadvantages to using a free service, you should try one out to see if it meets your needs. If you currently only have dial-up service to the Internet, and are exploring the possibilities of establishing an online business, then there is no better way to get your "feet wet" for free. Most of the services listed in the following table give you the capability to set-up Web sites for free, and since they are relatively easy to use, you can get your business online in less than a few hours.

To locate additional free domain hosting companies you can also try FreeLinks.org or FreeWebspace.net.