(no subject)

[danaeris]

[Poll #686604]

I need to get myself a domain name, and a hosting service. Any advice on that would also be welcome. Keep in mind I'm in Canadia.

Comments

[johno.livejournal.com]

European based backbone ISP, with a public ISP face based in the US and the UK.

1 and 1 Internet (http://www.1and1.com/?k_id=6805557)

$3 a month
5 GB of storage
250 GB of monthly bandwidth

Disclosure: I'm just a customer of 1 and 1, but the above is my affiliate link and I would get some small commission if you order using it.

They have been very stable for me.
1 domain registration and hosting *included*.

[secretsoflife.livejournal.com]

godaddy.com for a domain. the choices are endless for hosting, but the $12/yr plan at http://moonbase.info would in all likelyhood be sufficient for you. they're in toronto - local support is good :)

[aberrantvirtue.livejournal.com]

Bah! Don't support Go Daddy. You can get other, just as cheap domain name registration, and don't have to give your money to a company which supports a ridiculous amount of spam and scam/phishing sites.

(I recommend Dreamhost if you're going that route. Then again, if you shop around, you can do like I did and get it through Yahoo!Business for $1.99-$3.99 a year, usually.)

[secretsoflife.livejournal.com]

how do you mean they "support" scammers / phishing any more than any other registrar?

just asking :)

[metalana.livejournal.com]

.net may imply you are an internet service of some kind.
.com is quite capitalistic.
www.myname.ca is good if you want to advertise being Canadian.
If you are selling only science writing, and the NASW site is very professional, then that would be a good way to go.

[qedrakmar.livejournal.com]

These days, most people associate .com as simply "a web site", more than "commercial"

[earthdragon.livejournal.com]

People tend to assume .com, that is the main reason to be you.com and not you.net if you can.

[freefloat.livejournal.com]

What he said.

Additionally, if you have a .ca domain, IMO it's best to set up a redirect to you from yourname.com , since people who can't remember your address will tend to type mybestguess.com . (guilty as charged!)

[tocityguy.livejournal.com]

Unless you're planning on going back to the US, I would register a .CA domain. Besides being nationalistic, it's cheaper, and would probably give you more choices as to possible domains - i.e. jsmith.ca, johnsmith.ca, jbsmith.ca, thewriter.ca, etc.

[freefloat.livejournal.com]

Cheaper?

I was once offereed the choice between a .com domain at $12US, or a .ca domain for $50Cdn.

Of course, that was only the one provider. Chances are you're right if a person shops around.

[jackspryte.livejournal.com]

I always hated the my name.com movement I always thought it was a little to "up-front".

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

Then again, as a writer and author, my name IS my brand. This is a way of promoting my brand.

But, the question is, to those who think myname.com is that much better... is it so much better that it is worth paying for, when the nasw option is included in my NASW membership?

[oonh.livejournal.com]

I got owen.maresh.info (http://owen.maresh.info) (mostly just legal name stuff: family and work type stuff), which I share with Justin Maresh (http://justin.maresh.info).

I kind of think that myname.com and myname.net are kind of tacky.

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

Hm. Tacky, even for an author/writer/journalist, for whom their name IS their brand?

[kallisti.livejournal.com]

I would reserve the myname.com, .net, *and* get some other interesting domain name that relates to you, and point the myname.* to there. Having a website with myname.* is, IMOHO, a tad pretentious...but having your myname.* pointing to your interestingly named website shows not only are you creative, but net-savvy.

ttyl

[foms.livejournal.com]

Professional and tacky aside, your name identifies a site as relating to you. It is most likely the best way to make it easy to find you, though it cannot even guarantee the first page of hits on a search.

Recognition by one's own name is very good for repeat business. It does not promote walk-in trade. I am by no means sure that there is any reliable way to promote subject-based recognition of commercial ventures on the web but descriptive may be the way to go. How about something along the lines of sciencewriter.something? While this particular example is taken, there may be others floating around.

I am also reminded of a friend who posted about possible names for her editing site (http://bend-gules.livejournal.com/51541.html?nc=10). Catchy could be good, too.

Back to the word professional. I don't think that it applies. Professionalism is better equated with competence. The name that one chooses for a web site can neither demonstrate nor affect one's work. At best, the choice of name is about advertising, a different subject and one which you may want to consider.

[iclysdale.livejournal.com]

I think the question isn't so much "professional," which all of those except for the mac.com are, it's search-engine friendly. If people search for "Ian Clysdale," they'll get my commercial web site on the first bunch of hits, and part of that is that the URL name matching is a factor in the algorithms of most search engines. You're less likely to have that happen with a NASW page.

I went the clysdale.ca route out of a strange sense of nationalism, but there are arguments both ways in the .ca/.com question, and you might well want to register both. Since I'm not really actively looking for freelance work right now, being altogether too busy, I only keep up the one. .net strikes me as less relevant.