Domain Registration, what is involved??

I am a newbie to websites and I have just designed a website in Dreamweaver for my dad\\\'s photography business. The problem is I added it to my website making the address very long. I was wondering what is the best site for registering that adddress? Is it relitively cheap in price? Do I have to contact my local ISP and let them know that I have changed that address to whatever or do I just contact this domain regit=stration place and that\\\'s it?
Any advise or help would be very beneficial. I know nothing about doing this so as much info as possible would be very helpful.

Thanks,
Senna

« Last edited by Rich on Jul 16th 2014 »

Basically, you find some place to register your domain - one year, two years, four years, up to you. Then you find a company to host your website. Now a days just about any good host company provides domain registration for relatively cheap. The company that used to handle a lot of this was Network Solutions, which you set up an account with and administer your own domain, but I would stay away from them. (NetSol or Verisign is there names.)
Otherwise then the hosting company usually handles the domain name.

So.... You check to see if the domain is available, then rent the name for the period of time you want.

Now.... Once you get the info on a host company and sign up for an account you need their Domain servers, usually like this: ns1.dot5hosting.com, ns2dot5hosting.com for example. Then you go to the domain name and set the DNS to point to those servers. Sometimes you need the IP address of those servers, so get that information as well. If the host company handles it, then you dont need to worry about DNS or anything. That would mean you just rent the domain and then rent the host space and they will set it up for you. If you have your own server, then you need to get a static IP from your ISP company and then set your domain to point to that IP and server. If you are getting web space from your ISP for your website, then you will get the necessary info from them.

That should about cover it.

Also, you can download an FTP program, like WS FTPle and use that to upload to your site. It's free unless you buy the pro version, but I have always used the LE version and it works fine.

I use www.itsyourdomain.com they are really good.

*Stay away from network solutions and verisign at all costs!*

Itsyourdomain is $14.95. And they have a sale going on right now for $8.95 a year, but you have to be a previous customer. So no luck for you. ;)

That is cheap, so I would use the ones that Deker listed - Senna

You guys spend too much .. I paid $7.20 for mine

Sites that charge that little bother me. makes me think they are doing it illegally, or that they are going to just shut down one day and i'll lose all my domains. how can they make a profit charging that little? craziness.

I'm with Enom .. Pay $100 advance and you get cheaper prices ;)

Thanks everyone! I will look into it. I wasn't sure how to go about it ad you guys have answerd my questions.

Thanks again,

Senna

I only use Verisign. For people with multiple domains (20+) it offers much better service.

Goodness mattboy. Being a fan of microsoft of one thing, but actually wanting to use Verisign is pure madness!

I have close to 20 domains on my itsyourdomain account, and I have never had a bit of trouble. Verisign on the other hand... gees. When you call or email itsyourdomain, you actually get a live person who knows what he is talking about and has the control to do something about it. They write real replies just like a human.

They don't send you 15 different form letters telling you the same damn information over and over again... the customer service people don't go "uuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhh let me see if i can do that from my computer... or maybe i'll have to put in a work order... it could take up to 10 days for the change to be made"...

At itsyourdomain it's never taken longer than about 4 hours to get a response by email, and that first email has always fixed the problem. I never have to email back and forth for a week to get it all sorted out.

Craziness! verisign is craziness!