Internet Marketing In 5 Minutes

Find A Webhost

Domains, hosting, DNS...there's a whole lot of jargon out there just to get your website up and running. I'm hoping that these guides will assist you in cutting through the techno babble and explain what these computer geeks are talking about!

You can think of a Webhost as the place where your website 'lives'. Basically it's a computer a lot like the one you are probably using right now in a big air conditioned warehouse that is constantly connected to the internet.

People from around the world can access this computer, and the domain name tells the computer what files to show the visitor. Hundreds of websites can live on a single computer. It knows which files to show the different visitors based on the domain name.

There are some big players in the hosting industry, and some analysts say the entire industry is worth over $10bn! That's a lot of cash!

One of the biggest players in the game is called HostGator.com. They have great prices and have the added ability to be able to host unlimited sites on one account. HostGator prices start from just $4.95 per month.

A word of warning when looking at web hosting companies. They often publish extremely low monthly rates, but what they don't tell you until you are ready to checkout is that this is the equivalent monthly rate when you pre-pay for 12 or even 24 months in advance!

So when you see a host offering hosting for just $4.95 per month, you have to pay $178.20 upfront, which gives you the equivalent rate of $4.95.

This practice is pretty much standard throughout the hosting industry, so expect to pay between $50 and $120 for your hosting.

Although HostGator is suitable for virtually everyone, if you are just starting out in the internet marketing business, you may require something a little bit more affordable.

You can also check out a company called CirtexHosting.com who offer similar plans to HostGator but for just $2.99 a month.

Remember, the $2.99 a month is the equivalent price if you pre-pay for 2 years of hosting, so it ends up costing $71.76

Just like with registering your domain name, you can get coupons for various web hosting companies. The best thing to do is to go to Google and do a search for:

(note: replace the word 'company' with the name of the web hosting company you are looking at)

This is probably one of the trickiest parts of setting up your hosting - especially if you have registered the domain yourself.

Your host will send you an email and tell you to update your domain name servers (DNS) to something that will look like this:

The best course of action that I recommend that you take is to contact the support desk of your domain registrar and ask them what you have to do.

Simply ask:

"Hi, my new host has asked me to update my domain name servers to:

XX
XX

I'm not sure how I can do this in my members area, please can you point me in the right direction"

This will be a very common request for them, so they will be able to help you with no problem.

Once your DNS has been updated, you should see your website available in a few hours (usually minutes) by typing in your domain in the address bar of your brower.

28.09.2008. 06:24

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