There is a whole multitude of domain registration and website hosting offers in the market today.

I had an offer the other day to register domain names from $1.99 per year plus a whole lot of other bonuses. Admittedly I am already a customer of theirs and this offer was for existing customers only.

There are hosting sites that will host for nothing. Yes $0.00

Why would there be any excuse not to have your own website.

Having your own website shows the world that you are in business, and that you are getting serious about it, and, it gives you control of your internet business. At least more control than if you didn’t have a site at all.

You have to have your own websites.

I recently registered a domain name with GoDaddy.com for two years including two years of hosting, email addresses and so on for $66.00 all up.

Hardly a fortune and it’s with a reputable company.

Why not go with some cheaper of free site?

This company is reliable, here to stay and have a reliable hosting system that delivers more than 99% of the time (almost all hosts will shut down for a small period for maintenance every now and again and I should imagine that none can honestly quote 100%).

You’ll normally find that the down time, if there is any, is in the least busy traffic times in their home country anyway.

If GoDaddy are down for a few minutes in the early hour of the morning US time big deal.

There is a company in Australia that I have used since the very early days of the internet and email. They regularly are off the air for up to two hours early every morning (Australian time). Doesn’t worry me I am mostly asleep when it happens.

Assuming that my biggest pool of prospective visitors to my site are from the northern hemisphere, that down time in Australia, which the company claim affects nobody because most are asleep at that time, is a semi peak, if not peak, time in the U.S. and much of Europe. How much traffic could I lose? It’s anyone’s guess.

Needless to say I only use them as a mail server for incoming mail these days.

I know of someone that uses a free overseas host and he estimates they could be down as much as 30% of the time. No good complaining he says - You get what you pay for and it doesn’t cost me anything.

Quite right, it’s no good complaining.

What he doesn’t realize is that it IS costing him, probably big time, and it’s costing him in lost sales. I suppose he rationalizes that what he never had he won’t miss?

Consider your market - most of your internet businesses will probably not be governed by geographical boundaries in your own country, but world wide.

Make sure that your hosting arrangements suit your business requirements.

There are a few gems in this world that are free, I often wonder why Nvu is for instance, but on the whole nothing is really free.

You, or somebody, will invariably pay for it one way or the other. In the case of free hosts that maybe aren’t that reliable you are paying in potential lost sales and probably in other ways as well.

Consider a reputable host, the cost of hosting is inconsequential in the overall scheme of things.

Copyright 2005 John Cantrell

About The Author

John Cantrell

I have several websites amongst which www.sense-now.com deals with the subject of starting an internet business and what business will probably work for you and which not. www.diyaccounts.com.au deals with my experiences over twenty years of the writing, selling, installing and training of accounting software. www.oumas.com.au features arts, crafts, hobbies, making home made beer and wine, gardening and more. Most of my sites generate some of their income from Google AdSense.