Godaddy Coupon Codes and Specials on Domain Registration and Website Hosting

Here are the current Godaddy Coupon Codes and Specials I can offer my clients and friends:

More Information about Domain Registration

The process of getting a website setup and running is fairly straightforward, but can be confusing if you have never done it before. You need two things in order to have a website: a website domain name and a place to host that domain name.

Website Domain Name

This is the address people use to access your website. For example my website is named "www.timothywebdesign.com". Websites usually begin with a "www" so when registering a domain you only need to be concerned with the last two parts: the name (timothywebdesign) and the domain name extension ".com"

You can choose from a limited number of extensions for your website but most people choose either ".com", ".net" or ".org". Sometimes you will see a two or four letter extension such as ".info" or ".cc". The two letter extensions sometimes but not always refer to the country the website is hosted in such as ".ca" for Canada, but in recent years many people will use a two letter extension on their domain name regardless of the country because the name they wish is already being used on the ".com", ".net" or ".org". For example you could not get "timothywebdesign" with ".com", ".net" or ".org" but you could get "timothywebdesign.ca". Some domain extensions are restricted such as ".edu" and ".gov" for education and government sites or ".jp" for Japan. Some people choose to register several domain names at the same time and use them all to point to their website so that others cannot use their name with a different extension.

As mentioned above your domain name must be available with the extension you choose in order to register it. Registering a domain name gives you the right to use that name. Many companies offer domain name registration and you can use their lookup system to see if your domain name is available. It is best to register your domain name with the company you are going to be hosting with. You cannot "buy" a domain name. You can register to use the name for anywhere from one to ten years at a time. Registration usually costs somewhere between $10.00 and $100.00 per year depending on the extension, length of registration and service. Plan on about $10.00 per year for most common domain extensions such as ".com", ".net" or ".org". " Domains using ".tv" domains usually are much more. You can see the exact cost when looking up the domain name on most services.

It is very important that if you have someone else register a domain name for you that the domain name is registered in your name and that you have access to the account control panel for the domain name. The registered owner is the owner of the domain name so if someone else registers your domain name they own it unless they put it in your name.

Domain Name Recovery and Transfers

Sometimes organizations register a domain name and then lose track of where it is or lose the ability to use the domain. I can work on re-establish control of a lost domain and then transfer the domain name into an account you have control over. Sometimes this is a simple quick process, other times it can be quite time consuming. I will give you an estimate on the cost of recovering and / or transfering a domain name if needed. If the domain name you currently have is not in use, it is sometimes easier and less expensive to register a new domain name for use. Once the existing domain expires you can often repurchase the domain name.

More Information About Website Hosting

Once you have a domain name you need a place for it to live. This is your web host. They provide a place for your domain name to live and space on their servers for your website files.

Website hosting for small business usually ranges from $6.00 to $25.00 per month depending on how many people visit your site and any special features you may need. Sites with custom eCommerce solutions may require the use of an SSL certificate to secure your transactions. The cost here will depend on your exact needs but is usually between $50 to $200 per year.

Another important consideration in choosing a host is any special applications you will want to run on your site. Here is a simple chart with some of the more common website applications people run on their websites

	WordPress is a semantic personal publishing platform (i.e., blog) with a focus on aesthetics, Web standards, and usability. It supports multiple users, categories, comments, bookmarklets, RSS syndication, several APIs, and weblogs.com ping, among other features.
	Zen Cart™ truly is the art of e-commerce; a free, user-friendly, open source shopping cart system. The software is being developed by group of like-minded shop owners, programmers, designers, and consultants that think e-commerce could be and should be done differently
	Moodle is a course management system (CMS) - a free, Open Source software package designed using sound pedagogical principles, to help educators create effective online learning communities. It can scale from a single-teacher site to a 50,000-student University
	MediaWiki is a free software wiki package originally written for Wikipedia. It is now used by several other projects of the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation and by many other wikis. PMWiki can be used to create any kind of knowledge base from those intended to work with eLearning solutions to product information and technical support centers
	phpBB™ (“PHP Bulletin Board”) is the world's leading Open Source forum software. Distributed under the GNU General Public License, phpBB is free software, developed by volunteers from around the world

SimpleScripts is a web service that will install these applications on a host that supports their service. - http://www.simplescripts.com/ This is built into many hosts including BlueHost.

Depending on your needs I would recommend you consider using either BlueHost or Godaddy for your hosting needs. If I am working on a project for you I will take care of registering your domain names on the appropriate host and setting up your website hosting and installing these applications for you to use.