When registering for a domain name...

I just signed up with bluehost and they are excellent.

I use to register domains through Yahoo, but when their price went up to $35 I quickly transferred all of my domains to GoDaddy.

I was a big proponent of Yahoo Hosting until recently... I've been having a lot of problems lately with reliability and customer service.

I'm in the process of moving all of my shared accounts to BlueHost.

Here are my recommendations for hosting:

Rackspace for Dedicated
Bluehost for Shared

Best,

Jeremy

GoDaddy seems pretty reliable. I have a few low traffic sites hosted with them and I haven't had any meltdowns yet ;) Plus, you can't really beat their price.

Hi,

I have a domain name that is registered and parked at Godaddy-com. I am making my affiliate website with another web hosting site (1&1.com). I have unlocked my domain name at Godaddy.com and will be transferring it to 1&1.com.

What I would like to know is should I transfer the domain name completely or should I use an external domain where as the domain stays with my current provider (Godaddy.com) and will not be transferred to 1&1. Instead will be pointed to 1&1.com.

Thank you,

Carol

Ryan, how did you do the redirect? And which domain did you intend to have for your site?

There are two different types of redirects - permanent and temporary - differentiated by the return code they send in the headers (respectively 301 and 302) when someone tries to access that URL.

Permanent redirects are OK ... BUT the URL you are redirecting will disappear from the search results because you are telling the search engines "Hey - I moved, here's my new address". The domain you are redirecting TO should be unaffected. I do this frequently to redirect variations of one domain to another - no problems. I do the redirect myself, on the server where the redirected domain is pointing, using the apache .htaccess file.

Temporary redirects have a long history of wreaking havoc with search results. I haven't kept up on the current status, I just avoid them.

Some domain registrars offer a "redirect" option without telling you WHICH type of redirect they're doing. On Godaddy it's a temporary redirect.

You can use something like Firefox Live HTTP headers to see which code a URL is returning.

First, a quick, simplified definition: A DOMAIN REGISTRAR maintains information about your domain. This includes things like contact info, when it was registered, when it needs to be renewed, nameservers (the physical site on the web where the domain is "pointing"), various domain status codes. Your registrar also provides a way for you to update certain information as needed.

Locked/Unlocked is a domain status code.

A domain which is locked cannot be transferred away from the current registrar. An unlocked domain is ready be transferred away.

Domains which are in an unlocked state are sometimes the target of people attempting to steal them or fraudulently transfer them away to a different registrar.

Because of this, you should only unlock a domain if you WANT to transfer it elsewhere. You can lock or unlock a domain through the control panel at your domain registrar.

It's important to note that transferring a domain is NOT the same as pointing it to where your website is hosted. The latter is done by setting the NAMESERVERS in the domain control panel. Think of your domain as a name in a phone book - the nameservers keep track of the "physical address" on the internet (i.e. your hosting account) where the web site associated with that "name" can be found:

Domain at your domain registrar ("example.com") -> Nameservers (i.e. NS1.yourhostingaccount.com) -> actual disk space at your web host

You don't need to have your domain REGISTERED in the same place that your website is HOSTED, and in fact that is not always a good idea (putting all your eggs in one basket).

Clear as mud :)?