There are more than a few out there (maybe even you) that have entertained the idea of having your own web site, but are hesitant to do it because it’s a bit difficult to find out the true costs involved.
This article will list all costs and how to figure them out.
The cheapest way: Free
While it’s true you don’t get a dot-com going the free way, it’s not a bad idea to try this out anyway just to see if you can manage it all before taking the plunge.
Here’s some things you can try out to put a site together:
The site itself: LiveJournal, WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger
All three of these have the ability to "point" a dot-com of your choice to it later. With the free way you get something like you.wordpress.com.
And yes, the best way to start up a site is to use a blog because publishing your content is stupidly easy – and easy is good. Even if you don’t use it as a blog, it’s still the easiest.
Hosting your photos: Flickr, Picasa, Live Spaces, Photobucket, Zooomr
You should pick a photo service to store your photos with. Each has their pros and cons. The ones with paid options are completely optional as most people would find the free version just fine to use as is.
All these photos services have easy ability to post your uploaded photos directly into your blog of choice.
Hosting your videos: YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler and a ton of others
If you plan on posting videos it’s highly suggested to use a video sharing site even if you decide to pay for hosting later. The reason is because out of all content to host, video is the largest and most bandwidth-intensive.
Hosting your files: SkyDrive, XDrive, Box.net, FileFront and others
Aside from videos, file downloads are the second most bandwidth-intensive to host yourself. Most people usually don’t bother with this, but if you want some file hosting ability without worrying about bandwidth, you should check these services out.
E-Mail: Windows Live Mail or Gmail
Why only these two? Because they both offer free ways of enabling domain-based mail with them, as in you@example.com. With Live Mail (a.k.a. Hotmail) you can enable this with Windows Live Admin Center. With Gmail there’s Google Apps.
In addition – both these services allow you to federate your identity, so you can use your dot-com e-mail address as your instant messaging screen name (Windows Live Messenger or Google Talk depending on which one you pick).
How to figure out true costs with a domain? Think yearly.
It is better to figure out the costs of having your own dot-com on a yearly basis rather than bi-annually, quarterly or monthly. You will save the most cash by doing this and all costs involved land on the same day (more or less) each year.
1. Costs start with domain registration
Everything starts with the domain registration. You register a domain at a domain registrar; there are several to choose from.
I personally use Dotster, but you could go with GoDaddy or any number of other ones.
The yearly cost of a dot-com is anywhere from $9.99 to $14.95.
Remember: If you want to protect your privacy (which you should) you also must add in something called "WHOIS Privacy". This adds on an extra cost of $1.99 to $4.99 – so the true yearly cost can be as much as 20 bucks.
WHOIS Privacy prevents your physical address from being shown in a WHOIS record for your domain. But let’s say for the moment you decide to use a P.O. Box for registration (this is totally OK) and you don’t care who knows it. You will when your mailbox starts getting flooded with junk postal mail from other internet companies trying to make a buck off you.
2. Web hosting
You can opt to either upgrade an existing blog or do what’s called "self-hosting" your site at a web host provider.
Upgrading an existing blog is the cheapest but also the most limiting.
Going free-to-paid
WordPress has a domain mapping upgrade that costs 10 bucks a year. When someone types in your dot-com address, it will go to your blog and keep the address in the address bar.
The problem is that it’s very difficult to get domain-based e-mail working by doing this. If you’re comfortable not having you@your_site.com for your e-mail, the total yearly cost of domain registration + redirect with WordPress is roughly 30 dollars yearly.
Self-hosting
There are a plethora of low-cost web host providers out there, such as LogJamming who offers $5-a-month hosting. It’s a decent host with decent options for the money.
However the cost jumps significantly compared to upgrading a free blog to paid.
With $5-a-month hosting, the yearly cost is $60.
Add that to your domain registration + WHOIS privacy and the cost is now roughly 80 dollars yearly.
If using a web host provider that’s $15 monthly, the hosting costs + domain reg + WHOIS privacy is roughly 200 dollars yearly.
Yes it’s true, you can rack up quite a bill at the end of the year by doing this.
But bear in mind many web host providers offer discounts up to 30% off if you pay a year in advance – so you can cut costs there.
3. Additional crapola added in by self-hosting
Self-hosting has never been completely automatic. You will have to upgrade things manually, such as using FTP, manually accessing MySQL databases and so on. It’s not easy and never has been.
However with self-hosting you do get the most control. You can get right down to the nitty-gritty code itself and modify things at whim whereas with free-to-paid blogs you are only allowed to modify what that service deems "safe" to modify.
Personally speaking I think it’s worth it to figure out how to do stuff self-hosted style. And even if you screw up, so what? It happens. Live and learn, that’s what it’s all about.
Questions answered
Q: Is there any way to get a domain completely for free?
A: NO. There never has been. Any service that says "free domain" is free if you purchase something else. So the reality is that it’s not free.
Every single service that offers a "free domain" always has a catch. Always.
Q: Are there ways to lower registration prices?
A: YES. If you’re outright determined to go as cheap as possible, yes. You can do a Google search for GoDaddy coupon and you should find something to knock the price down.
Q: Can I "lock" my web hosting costs to protect myself from when prices go up?
A: Other than paying on a yearly basis, NO. This is yet another reason to pay yearly instead of bi-annual, quarterly or monthly.
Q: What are typically the cheapest type of domain registrations?
A: Anything that ends in dot-org, dot-biz or dot-info is usually cheaper compared to dot-net and dot-com. My recommendation if going cheap is to go for the dot-org, because dot-info and dot-biz are typically seen by many as "spammy".
Q: Can I host my web site on my own computer?
A: 99% of the time the answer is NO because your ISP’s TACOS (Terms And Conditions Of Service) and/or AUP (Acceptable User Policy) strictly forbids any server to be run from your computer at home using a consumer-grade internet access plan.
This is easily identified in the TACOS and/or AUP as the "no servers" clause. If you run a server and your ISP detects it (which they will almost instantly), your internet will be shut off and without warning. And trust me, you don’t want that to happen.
The only way to run your own server from your house without getting your internet shut off is to have a business-grade access plan. It will cost double to triple per month compared to what you’re paying now – all for the "privilege" of running a server.
DO NOT let anyone tell you differently. It’s very easy for somebody to say "I"ve been running a server for x many months/years on my ISP plan and never had a problem!". That’s a lie because it just isn’t so in the United States.
If you’re unsure, CALL your ISP directly and ask. Make sure to specifically ask "I want to run a web server from my house – is this allowed?" Don’t be shocked in the slightest when the answer is NO.
If you’re so cheap that you can’t afford 5 bucks a month for web hosting, just blog-host it with WordPress for 10 bucks a year + domain reg + WHOIS privacy.
Q: I’ve seen "free domain hosting" for some sites. Are those any good?
A: NO. It’s either ad-supported (banners everywhere) and/or agonizingly slow. Don’t bother with those.
In addition, search engines "hate" free hosters because they’re typically spam farms – so the likelihood of you getting any significant traffic from search engine results is basically zero.
Q: So there’s no way to get a domain registered and hosted for free?
A: NO. Domain registrations cost money as does bandwidth to the provider, plain and simple.
Recommended links to shop around:
- InterNIC’s Registrar List (for domain registration)
- HostChart (for domain hosting)
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