Website Hosting + Registrar Suggestions

[RiskyChris]

So I've decided after not having run a website for almost 7 years now, that I'd like to get back into the game.

As far as registrars go, it seems that I'll be using Godaddy, as it's almost 100% of what everyone suggested.

Hosting is a different story. There are so many different hosting plans and prices that I'm feeling a little dizzy. The two most suggested have been Dreamhost (I've heard bad things) and hostgator. As far as what I'm looking to have, I want to run wordpress for a few months while I do work in the real world, then convert it into a hybrid blog with gaming content.

I hear there's some deal where you can get a Dreamhost setup with a "coupon" for $20 on the first year. Is this a good idea? Would I have troubles switching to another host in a year's time?

Thanks guys. <3

[Ham n Cheese]

Dreamhost has been great for me and the companies that I contract for that use them. One was on a shared server once (the really cheap plans) and kept getting blocked by the sonicwall firewalls. They moved us over servers and their 2 monthly calls you get a month under his plan really came in handy, to use one of the calls I talked to the same guy several times throughout the day (it ended up being a problem not on their end anyway). Their FTP is easy to use and you can add a fuckload of users and passwords through the web panel really easily as well as mail servers while restricting the amount each inbox gets. When I go use godaddy's web panel after dreamhost I'm annoyed, but I still mainly register domains through godaddy or gkg.net.

Hamtunes is on dreamhost shared server and uses word press, I can't think of a time where the domain ever went down either. The main page loads 25 stories, many times with youtube videos in them pretty quickly too. Really over the last year I've been a huge supporter of dreamhost due to their fast as shit customer service (even through e-mail) and the way they have things set up. None of the sites I maintain really have an insane amount of streaming media on them though just fyi. Oh and another knock off godaddy is I have a company that uses their web servers through godaddy and the shit will randomly throw shit into spam. You'll flag it as not spam and it will show up in the inbox one or two times then start doing it again. Godaddy mail servers have given me my fair share of headaches.

[QforQ]

I've been using Lunarpages.com for the past 5 years. It's great, shit loads of bandwidth and diskspace and great support.

Ive been on their basic plan for this whole time and they just recently upped it to 3.5TB of Bandwidth and 350GB of storage, all for $7 a month. A great deal and like I said, a great host.

[RiskyChris]

Originally Posted by Ham n Cheese

Dreamhost has been great for me and the companies that I contract for that use them. One was on a shared server once (the really cheap plans) and kept getting blocked by the sonicwall firewalls. They moved us over servers and their 2 monthly calls you get a month under his plan really came in handy, to use one of the calls I talked to the same guy several times throughout the day (it ended up being a problem not on their end anyway). Their FTP is easy to use and you can add a fuckload of users and passwords through the web panel really easily as well as mail servers while restricting the amount each inbox gets. When I go use godaddy's web panel after dreamhost I'm annoyed, but I still mainly register domains through godaddy or gkg.net.

Hamtunes is on dreamhost shared server and uses word press, I can't think of a time where the domain ever went down either. The main page loads 25 stories, many times with youtube videos in them pretty quickly too. Really over the last year I've been a huge supporter of dreamhost due to their fast as shit customer service (even through e-mail) and the way they have things set up. None of the sites I maintain really have an insane amount of streaming media on them though just fyi. Oh and another knock off godaddy is I have a company that uses their web servers through godaddy and the shit will randomly throw shit into spam. You'll flag it as not spam and it will show up in the inbox one or two times then start doing it again. Godaddy mail servers have given me my fair share of headaches.

Thanks very much for giving me better confidence in Dreamhost!

Originally Posted by QforQ

I've been using Lunarpages.com for the past 5 years. It's great, shit loads of bandwidth and diskspace and great support.

Ive been on their basic plan for this whole time and they just recently upped it to 3.5TB of Bandwidth and 350GB of storage, all for $7 a month. A great deal and like I said, a great host.

Cool, I'll check them out as well.

Thanks guys, I was worried this forum was too quiet to get an answer. <3!

Edit: Don't know why I attached a frown smiley to the post...

[Murr]

i can pimp dreamhost as well, I've only had positive experiences.
Should let me refer you so I get free dollaz imo =p

[Sanrith DesCartes]

Anyone got any info on Siteground?

[Jadaki]

I've used ipowerweb in the past, but they were not good at keeping software up to date (older versions of apache etc...). I liked the interface they had though.

Do any of the ones suggested in here do a good job of keeping the back end stuff up to date?

[Kaio]

Lunarpage deal is completely ridiculous... Theres overselling and theres...that...wtf mate.

I guess if they provide good support and performance for those using a tera-byte or more of transfer a month it's all good but that deal is fishy, really fishy.

3.5 tera-bytes for $7 a month and each additional gig is $3.95. So if you used an extra tera-byte your bill would be $3,950 higher... even without overages that is too much transfer for my mind to wrap around for so little cost.

[Murr]

Originally Posted by Kaio

Lunarpage deal is completely ridiculous... Theres overselling and theres...that...wtf mate.

I guess if they provide good support and performance for those using a tera-byte or more of transfer a month it's all good but that deal is fishy, really fishy.

3.5 tera-bytes for $7 a month and each additional gig is $3.95. So if you used an extra tera-byte your bill would be $3,950 higher... even without overages that is too much transfer for my mind to wrap around for so little cost.

Should see my dreamhost plan - my friends and I jumped on a special deal about 3 years ago from them and I've just kept it for various reasons. ATM (for $9.99/mo) I get: 635 gb storage, 7.5 tb transfer/month, and a unique ip. Never even scratch like 1% of that, but it's nice to know it's there!

[Ham n Cheese]

you could have your own tvlinks page with that type of bandwidth

[Murr]

Originally Posted by Ham n Cheese

you could have your own tvlinks page with that type of bandwidth

i'm happy to whore it out for a pittance, if anyone has a need of bw/hosting.

[Ham n Cheese]

I vote you become Searyx 2.0 and start hosting episodes of shit I've never heard of.

[Lenas]

I've used hostgator for a few years now and I've never had any problems. Have a reseller package for $25/mo, hosting my freelance jobs on it and charging each client $10/mo = win.

I think hostgator has an option in its control panel to actually install wordpress for you, if you want. Pretty convenient.

[Traldan]

VGTact was hosted on Bluehost before joining Uberguilds, and they were good for everything except Server CPU. I never even got close to my bandwidth limit (don't remember what it is, pretty damn high), and plenty of storage, extra features, etc. The only problem I ever had was that vBulletin was killing the shared servers there and causing CPU Quota Exceeded messages.

[Cascow]

I'd host with DreamHost for no other reason that this banner ad.