Finding a Home for Your Blog

 

The easiest way to find whether a host meets the minimum requirement is to check the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section of the host’s Web site, if it has one. If not, find the contact information for the hosting company, and fire off an e-mail requesting information on exactly what it supports. Any Web host worth dealing with will answer your e-mail within a reasonable amount of time (12-24 hours is a good barometer).

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Finding a Home for Your Blog

✦ Domain e-mail with Web mail access
✦ File Transfer Protocol (FTP) access
✦ Comprehensive Web site statistics
✦ MySQL database(s)

✦ PHP

Because you intend to run WordPress on your Web server, you need to look for a host that provides the minimum requirements needed to run the software on your hosting account, which are

 

✦ PHP version 4.3 (or greater)

✦ MySQL version 4.0 (or greater)

 

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Finding a Home for Your Blog

On the other hand, if your Web host supports the software on your account,
it comes at a cost: You have to pay for that extra support. To find whether
your chosen host supports WordPress, ask first. If your host doesn’t offer
software support, you can still find WordPress support in the support
forums at http://wordpress.org/support, as shown in Figure 1-1.

Several Web hosting providers also have WordPress-related services available for additional fees. These services can include technical support, plugin installation and configuration, and theme design.

Generally, hosting services provide (at least) these services with your
account:

 

✦ Hard drive space

✦ Bandwidth (transfer)

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Finding a Home for Your Blog

When discussing Web hosting considerations, it is important to understand
where your hosting account ends and WordPress begins. Support for the
WordPress software may or may not be included in your hosting package.

Some Web hosts consider WordPress to be a third-party application. This
means that the host typically won’t provide technical support on the use
of WordPress (or any other software application) because software sup-
port generally isn’t included in your hosting package. The Web host sup-
ports your hosting account but, typically, doesn’t support the software you
choose to install.

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Finding a Home for Your Blog

 

After you register your domain, you need to find a place for it to live — a Web host. Web hosting is the second piece of the puzzle that you need to complete before you begin working with WordPress.org.

A Web host is a business, a group, or an individual that provides Web server
space and bandwidth for file transfer to Web site owners who don’t have
it. Usually, Web hosting services charge a monthly or annual fee — unless
you’re fortunate enough to know someone who’s willing to give you server
space and bandwidth free. The cost varies from host to host, but you can
obtain quality Web hosting services for $3 to $10 per month to start.

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Finding a Home for Your Blog

The next step is obtaining a hosting account, which we cover in the next
section.

 

Some of the domain registrars have hosting services that you can sign up

for, but you don’t have to use those services. Often, you can find hosting ser-
vices for a lower cost than most domain registrars offer. It just takes a little
research.

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Purchase the domain name.

 

Follow the domain registrar’s steps to purchase the name, using your
credit card. After you complete the checkout process, you receive an

e-mail confirming your purchase, so be sure to use a valid e-mail address during the registration process.

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Decide on a domain name.

.

Doing a little planning and forethought here is necessary. Many people
think of a domain name as a brand — a way of identifying their Web sites
or blogs. Think of potential names for your site and then proceed with
your plan.

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Verify the domain name’s availability.

 

In your Web browser, enter the URL of the domain registrar of your
choice. Look for the section on the registrar’s Web site that lets you
enter the domain name (typically, a short text field) to see whether
it’s available. If the domain name isn’t available as a .com, try .net or
.info.

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Registering your domain name

✦ GoDaddy: http://godaddy.com
✦ Register.com: http://register.com

✦ Network Solutions: http://networksolutions.com ✦ NamesDirect: http://namesdirect.com

No matter where you choose to register your domain name, here are the steps you can take to accomplish this task:

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Registering your domain name

 

Domain registrars are certified and approved by the Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Although hundreds of domain regis-
trars exist, the ones in the following list are popular because of their longev-
ity in the industry, competitive pricing, and the variety of services they offer
in addition to domain name registration (such as Web hosting and Web site
traffic builders):

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Establishing Your Domain

When you pay the domain registration fee today, you need to pay another
registration fee when the renewal date comes up again in a year, or two, or
five — however many years you chose to register your domain name for.
(See the nearby “Domain names: Do you own or rent?” sidebar.) Most regis-
trars give you the option of signing up for a service called Auto Renew to
automatically renew your domain name and bill the charges to the credit
card you set up on that account. The registrar sends you a reminder a few
months in advance, telling you it’s time to renew. If you don’t have Auto

Renew set up, you need to log in to your registrar account before it expires and manually renew your domain name.

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Considering the cost of a domain name

 

Registering a domain costs you anywhere from $3 to $30 per year, depending on what service you use for a registrar and what options (such as privacy options and search engine submission services) you apply to your domain name during the registration process.

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Understanding domain name extensions

If you want to avert this problem, you can register your domain name

with all available extensions. My business Web site, for example, has the domain name EWebscapes.com; however, I also own EWebscapes.net, EWebscapes.biz, and EWebscapes.info.

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Understanding domain name extensions

A word to the wise here: Just because you registered your domain as a

.com doesn’t mean that someone else doesn’t, or can’t, own the very same
domain name with a .net. Therefore, if you register MyDogHasFleas.com,
and the site becomes hugely popular among readers with dogs that have
fleas, someone else can come along, register MyDogHasFleas.net, and run
a similar site to yours in the hope of riding the coattails of your Web site’s
popularity and readership.

 

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