We get emails from a lot of people that are contemplating building or hosting their own website and are confused about web hosting and domain names. I will try to help clear up that confusion in this article.
When you purchase a domain name, you are securing just the name used to point to your website; there are no additional features. A domain name from Go-Daddy is around $8.95 a year (depending if you want .com, .org, .net or many of the other new extensions) and usually can be used with both free and paid hosting. Domain nameservers are used to "point" your domain name to your hosting account. Nameservers are found within your domain name administration account DNS settings, and normally if you purchase your domain name and web hosting at the same place, (Go-Daddy for example) you do not have to make any changes to your nameservers. Your domain name will automatically point to your hosted website. You only need to change your nameservers in your domain name account if your actual hosting account is with a different company, such as a free web hosting account. The new nameservers will be provided by your web host. Changes may take around 24 hours to take affect.
Free web hosting is generally supported by a banner ad or text link somewhere on your website pages. If you choose not to purchase a domain name, you are provided with a free sub-domain name. It will usually be like something.something.com and is considered a 2nd level domain name. Sub-domains are not favored as highly by search engines and you have no control over the name if the free web hosting company goes out of business. You also cannot move your sub-domain to a different web host. Paid web hosting will remove ads and links, increase your bandwidth and web traffic limits and usually entitles you to a variety of other features.
Paid web hosting may be bought in 3 month increments or by the year - the more you buy at a time the more you save. You can view recommended hosting plans HERE. Often people use domain names and professional (paid) hosting together, and this is where it gets confusing. They are two separate services that compliment each other, but don't necessarily need each other to work. Renewing your hosting does not renew a domain name and vice versa. The two don't always expire at the same time either. It is important to note the expiry date for both of these features to make sure they are renewed on time. Forgetting to renew a domain name can result in losing that domain name forever. Make sure to pay attention to your email reminders, such as, domain expiry notifications.
I hope these helps clear things up for everyone. Happy site building!
A guest post by Doyle Dawkins from http://buildfree.org. From my years of promoting free website hosting, I have formulated a depressing statistic. Nearly 9 out of 10 people that build a free website, give up with their first attempt. I am not talking about Facebook, Myspace, Twitter or any other social network, but a "real" website. One that you have to come up with the complete content and layout like the free hosts Webstarts or Wix.com. The reasons for this abandonment vary considerably, but I can make the following assumptions. The first being the plain fact that it is "free". When someone just gives you something, there really is no value. You do not give it the respect (and effort) you would have, had you paid for it with your own hard-earned money.
Let me first explain how a website can really be "free". Web hosting companies can give away free websites because they are gambling that at some point you may upgrade your free website to a paid website. You may want to do this for 2 reasons. The first is to get a "real" top-level domain name (instead of a free sub-domain) with more web space (file size) and bandwidth (visitor traffic). The 2nd reason to upgrade would be to remove any advertising put on your free website by the web hosting provider.
So that being said, I would like to establish that there is actually a great "value" to your free website, though you may not initially realize the benefits. The more visitors your free website has, the more revenue you create both directly and indirectly for the free web hosting provider. Directly by your visitors clicking on advertising on your free website's pages. And indirectly, by someone visiting your free website, and deciding they would like a free website of their own and click the (free hosting provider's) link to start building a free website - viral marketing! So I hope I have proved that there is "value" to a free website, there is just not initially to the end user (you). The true value to you comes later; with the free education you have received learning the web builder interface, dealing with affiliates, finding web page add-ons, cool javascript effects etc.
Another reason people abandon their first free website after they sign up, is the difficulty figuring out the web building interface, and frustration by the lack of tech support. I will agree that unavailable tech support is a big downside of free web hosting, but with the millions of free websites on the internet, there is no way free web hosting companies could offer one-on-one tech as most free website customers are total beginners. The biggest hint I would have here, is to just not give up completely on your first attempt at building a free website if you hit a brick wall. Even though you may have failed at a certain free web host, that does not mean you will fail at another. If you gave it your best college try, believe me, you will have learned something that will come in handy at another free web host.
Each free webhosting provider has a different interface that you will use use to build your free website. Some are easier than others - some may require you to know a bit of HTML code, while others will have a drop-and-drag method. Still others may have a "web wizard" or WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) website builder. So since there are so many free web hosts out there, just choose another location and give it another shot.
Another reason people fail at building a free website is the reason they are building a free website in the first place. Some think they can build a quick website, fill it full of affiliate banners and money-making links, and they will be the next internet millionaire. A website (yes, even a free one) needs to have some viable content on it's pages. Your website needs to contribute to the internet by offering some interesting content, even if it is only interesting to a certain few that share your interests. I always recommend building your first free website about something you are passionate about. It is best to start with a content website instead of jumping right in and selling stuff on an e-commerce business website. It could be your favorite hobby or whatever you are best at, whatever it may be. It could be about fishing, billiards, car repair or cooking - you get the idea. Just think of your first free website as a learning experience, regardless of your ultimate goals.
And now to the biggest reason why people give up on their first free website - TIME. You may think you can build a free website today and tomorrow hundreds of people will automatically find it and visit. Well it doesn't work that way for the mere fact there are millions of free websites out there competing for a top spot on a search engine. Google does it's best to "crawl" all the new websites and pages created every day, but just for the reason of sheer numbers, it may take weeks or even months to get listed. And with no listing, that means no visitors. An no visitors means no reward for your hard work - being financial rewards or just some positive feedback.
So Doyle's helpful hint for this dilemma is BE PATIENT. Use this time to create another free website. Use the skills you have learned by prior free website building to improve the overall professional look and feel of your website. By having a "family" of free websites that link to each other, you may increase the popularity of all your sites (as seen by search engines), as well as speed up the time it takes listed on Google, Yahoo, MSN etc. Once again if you fail or are frustrated by the new free web host or have trouble with their web page building interface, move on to another! There is a list of over 100 free web hosting providers HERE.
My overall summary on this matter is to be persistent and stay focused on your ultimate goal. Free website building is a learning experience. It is a valuable tool to have in your internet arsenal. The great thing is you never know exactly where your journey may lead, but all knowledge is useful and the feeling you get for creating a content filled informative free website is an unmeasureable fulfilling accomplishment. The ultimate reward for your work is if and when you decide you need to create a top-level "real" website, you don't have to pay the geeky friend of your neighbor's aunt to do it for you. You will already have the skills needed - all obtained from what was given away as a free website!
On a sidenote, if you know for sure absolutely positively that building and having a website is in your future, get your own "real" domain name and paid hosting as soon as possible. The traffic and Google listing you build up from a sub-domain (the free domain name on your free site) cannot be transferred to your "real" site. Google is going to hit on your domain name to create it's listing. Search for a domain name below.
Thanks for the opportunity to rant... Doyle Dawkins
You may remember from prior posts that I have been working with widgetbox.com. Widgetbox.com is website where you can go and make widgets, easily distributable add-ons or do-dads for people to put on their website or blog for free. A widget will have a short, easy to copy bit java-script that people can install in seconds with little effort.
There are several different reasons to offer free widgets to your visitors. People love FREE stuff, so having a sought after widget is like having a popular I-Phone app. Visitors will seek out your website or blog to get the widget, so you get traffic that way. You also can use the widget to get traffic from the widget itself once it is installed on the end users site. So it is a fun form of viral marketing.
I have been offering my own type of free widgets from my sites for a couple of years, but the only way (I know of) to protect the code within the widget is to use I-frames. A frame is like a portion of a web page within another web page. And you want to protect the content of the original script so the end user does not modify it and take away the benefits you have worked so dearly for. So I could offer a short bit of I-frame code to distribute a game box or something, and when a visitor clicked a game to play, it would lead to one of my websites.
Unfortunately, some social networking sites like myspace and others prohibit the use of frames. I would guess it is due to the fact that after I have a ton of people install the I-frame code, I could change the content of the page that is being "framed" to whatever I wanted, so there is no way to monitor the content or protect unsuspecting users from unscrupulous widgets.
The advantage of using widgetbox.com is they can turn an I-frame into java script in minutes. And java script is ok to use on almost all websites and blogs. Once you have an account at widgetbox.com, you can start developing widgets for free right away. However, like all good start-ups, the perfect world was only free for a while. Yes, you can still create free widgets, but they display a short ad on your widget as it is displayed. It eventually disappears or you can "x" out of the ad, but nonetheless it is annoying.
Which led me to the problem with my 18 digit calculator widget. When I first started working on the calculator widget, I could tell by the traffic reports from widgetbox.com that the calculator had the potential to be a popular widget. But the forced ad resulted in a real big problem. Even when there was no ad being displayed, there was a small clickable "ad" icon in the top left of the widget. In most cases this would not be a problem, but on the calculator, it ended up right over where the first digit would be on the display. This made the calculator virtually unusable.
Without completely refiguring the entire layout and starting over, there was really only one alternative; going pro. I am all about FREE, and have based my entire website modeling on FREE, but widgetbox.com will remove all ads and give some other benefits for $30 a year. So I am giving it a shot. And below is the free (and ad-free) 18 digit calculator widget that you can embed on your site or blog. And if you like it, maybe you could shoot me a Paypal dollar or two to doyledawkins@yahoo.com. We will try to keep it ad-free forever.
I always like to play around editing photos. I even like it more when it is free. The following sites are my favorite online (web-based) photo editing programs.
(Updated
December 11, 2012)
Online Photo Editing Websites
http://www.webinpaint.com/ - Remove unwanted portions of a photo - for example; an electrical wire (or ex-spouse..)
http://www.befunky.com/create/#/home - Here you can edit your photo, add photo effects, add artsy effects, add graphics and shapes, add text and speech bubbles and add frames and borders. When saving, you can reduce file size of finished photo.
http://pixlr.com/ - Here you have the choice between a standard photo editor and a vintage effects program.
http://editor.pho.to/ - Photo correction, crop, resize, apply artistic effects, add text, watermark or my favorite; the caricature effect. It says "register free", but you can edit online without registering. NOTE: notice the "Pho.to services" top bar - the tabs have more fun editing effects!
http://webresizer.com/resizer/ - Fast photo file resizer. Make your photos ready for emailing and putting on web pages. Also add borders or crop.
http://fotoflexer.com/start.php - Looks like any old photo editor at first, but use the tabs across the top to effect, decorate, animate, beautify, distort and more!
http://www.phixr.com/photo/userindex - Great online photo editor with some unique attributes. I like the head-in-a-hole, round corners and instant photo effect.
http://www.myimager.com/ - I use this site to specifically reduce the file size of my GIF images. Do this by choosing "optimize" and reduce the number of colors in the image. Sometimes you can save up to 90% file size with no visual difference!
http://www.321webmaster.com/optijpg.php - Reducing and optimizing your .jpg images speeds page load time. Enter URL of existing image and click "reduce your image".
Fun with photos - these sites are not actually online photo editing sites, but you can create cool stuff with your images.
http://pikipimp.com/ - My favorite fun online site to add stuff to your photos - play around with the "elements" section of this program and you will be entertained for hours.
http://www.pizap.com/ - A free online photo editor featuring fun free photo effects, photo stickers and one click effects for your digital photos.
http://bighugelabs.com/ - They live up to their name - a library of around 40 cool things you can do with a photo. I like the badgemaker.
http://www.faceinhole.com/us/ - Upload a picture of a face and put it a bunch of different scenes. Pretty cool as you can edit the hue, saturation to match. Hint: click the categories above the photos to get more choices from that genre.
http://www.writeonit.org/ - Here you can easily create your photomontage, free cards, magazine cover and face in the hole effects.
http://funphotobox.com/ - Pay attention to the top toolbar here to make face effects, photo effects, animations, cards and tools.
http://www.photo505.com/ - Photo505 enable you to select from numerous digital photo effects to add into picture for fun. Their digital photo effects is almost updated daily so be sure to check them out.
http://www.dumpr.net/ - 21 cool things you can do with your photos. I like the LOMO effect, puts a glare / sheen on your image.
http://www.photovisi.com/ - Photovisi lets you create collage style wallpapers using your own photos. There are many templates to choose from and very easy to use.
http://wigflip.com/- Several different free cool things you can make. Not all allow you to upload photos, but go anyway, you won't be sorry.
http://repperpatterns.com/tool/ - Upload a photo then drag the box around to create cool patterns. These can be used for your desktop backgrounds or web page backgrounds. You are using the free online version of software that is for sale - the image you save is a low quality image, but still good for web page (and desktop) backgrounds.
http://www.photofunia.com/ - Uses facial recognition software to place a face from your uploaded photo onto some interesting objects.
http://tools.dynamicdrive.com/imageoptimizer/index.php - Optimize your photos for use in email and webpages. Shrinks the file size so the photo will load quicker. If you don't know what I am talking about, you probably don't need it.
http://www.morphthing.com/ - Combine two or more celebrity faces to come up with the ultimate celebrity.
http://www.effmypic.com/ - Upload your photo and place it in different scenes. Some are pretty cool.
http://www.freeflashtoys.com/ - Some of the flash toys here involve doing things with your photos, so I thought I would include this link.
http://imagechef.com - A boatload of frames and cool effects for you to insert your photo into. Best waste of time ever.
http://www.needlepaint.com/ - Convert your image to a needlepoint pattern. They will even send you the thread and pattern (not free). You can save your converted photo for free - right-click on the image and choose "save picture as".
Umark lite -
Add watermarks to your photos or images to prevent people from using them without your consent. Also used to advertise your site.
Microsoft
Ice - (Image Composite Editor) An advanced panoramic image stitcher. Given a set of overlapping photographs of a scene shot from a single camera location, the application creates a high-resolution panorama that seamlessly combines the original images.
PhoXo - Use the effect tools to get creative and insert shadow text, speech bubbles, fade effects, gradients, image frames, clipart objects and more.
Riot - A free download I thought I would include. A great tool for bloggers that compresses photos so they will have a smaller file size and load faster.
IrfanView - Ask anyone who knows photo editing and they will know about IrfanView. Be sure to download the plug-ins.
Gadwin PrintScreen - Not for photo editing exactly, but the darn best free screen capture program out there.
BorderMaker - BorderMaker enables you to add borders, text overlays, and watermarks to your images.
Poladroid - A free downloadable program to make polaroid-like photos.
We get emails from a lot of people that are contemplating building or hosting their own website and are confused about web hosting and domain names. I will try to help clear up that confusion in this article. 
A guest post by Doyle Dawkins from 