Was wondering if anyone has a web site for personal use? If so, which web host are you using (GoDaddy, for example)
I'm looking for a host that has low monthly fees, allows free email addresses (at least one), and is easy to set up.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
Well, this is probably so out of date for today's web hosting, but, in the past, I used GoDaddy for a home inspection site, and it seemed to be fine, price wise and creative wise.
This was , ummm, 2010? So I'm so sure there is so much more out there.
Just thought I'd chime in with my experience.
Mike
My You Tube
You can build/host a site for free directly through Wordpress. But you are limited to their base themes and your domain name will have some variant of Wordpress attached to it (I.e Wordpress/cooltrainstuff instead of cooltrainstuff). For cheap hosting I’d go with GoDaddy but beware: very few (if any) cheap hosting plans are actively monitored. If you don’t keep your theme, Wordpress install, plugins etc constantly up to date, you become vulnerable. And you won’t know you’ve been compromised until long after you’ve been hacked. Even more fun, if you get hacked, it will most likey cost north of $500 bucks to have the host “clean” your site—then they will want you to upgrade to a monitored plan for a minimum of 50/month.
I’m not trying to be alarmist—even with a cheap hosting plan the chances of getting hacked are minimal, but it happens more than people realize, and really sucks when it does. And you might think “there’s nothing worth hacking on my site”. What they are afteR is email addresses. They create a bunch tied to your domain an use them for phishing, then your site gets blacklisted.
Whenver possible I use WPEngine For hosting. They have secure monitored hosting starting around 30/month, but for personal/hobby use, that ain’t cheap.
I'm using Wix.com. The most basic package displays small Wix brand ads to your website but they aren't too bad. Cost: $5/mo for 1GB of bandwidth, 500MB of storage, and a email mailbox.
I started out with the basic plan then chose the "combo" plan ($10/mo) that removes the ads and gives me a free domain. I've been very happy with Wix and the quality of the webpage features, which are added to on a regular basis. My website can be found at the bottom of this post.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
I highly recommend that you check ou weebly.com for setting up a FREE website. I have been using them for many years for a website (jimcarves.weebly.com) for my woodcarving hobby. I am happy with what I get from the free version, but if you want more you can pay for extras.
wdcrvr
Thanks for the information above.
I see that domain names are required. Sometimes "free" for the first year of service (and then they charge the going rate, whatever that might mean),. Did you guys get the domain names through the web host service, or is there a place to get them that might be less expensive after the first year?
I looked at the free plan at weebly.com. and it mentions weebly ads attached to the web sites. I didn't see any at the jimcarves.weebly.com site. Is the appearance of ads a random thing?
Thanks again.
For Wix it's just a small banner at the bottom of each web page saying it's "powered by Wix.com" - that's it. So, no 3rd party advertisements for dirty socks or ginsu knives.
IIRC, I registered my domain name when I was with a different ISP and purchased it separately. That way it could "travel" with me when I changed to another ISP and Wix allowed me to use it with my current website.
Cost to register and keep a domain was $20/yr. The domain is rolled into the cost of the Wix plans beyond their "basic" plan. So, with the latter you would need to purchase one yourself.
Yes, there are less expensive plans out on the internet. The catch is usually a compromise/limitation in features, or some kind of advertising to help reduce the cost.
FWIW...
Try looking at this list I'm not sure of its accuracy but it's worth a shot.
https://www.sitebuilderreport.com
Steve
If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough!
1&1 - reliable and inexpensive. I have three sites there. I would avoid Godaddy.
Guy
see stuff at: the Willoughby Line Site
I recently switched from Yahoo / Abaco, who were rather expensive ($12+ dollars a month) to Godaddy (much cheaper), and am very happy. Wordpress is what I use for the site foundation.
I'm still in the process of converting the site. It's taking a time because the old one was generated by Microsoft Frontpage (yes, it was that old), and I'm basically having to recreate every page (which is fine since my old format style I used is WAY out of date).
I'm curious, Guy. Why do say to avoid Godaddy?
Mark P.
Website: http://www.thecbandqinwyoming.comVideos: https://www.youtube.com/user/mabrunton
BruntonI'm curious, Guy. Why do say to avoid Godaddy?
I did some additional poking around and found this site which has opinions on a large number of hosts. A lot of the customer issues are scary, mostly about customer service. But of course, I suppose that it is just like here, where there are good and bad opinions about everything.
https://www.whoishostingthis.com/hosting-reviews/
Working for a consulting company, I do a lot of stuff with domain registrations, DNS, and certificates - and almost EVERYONE used GoDaddy, because they are fast, easy, and cheap. I bought my domains throough there. My web site hosting is $2.50/mo for 2.5GB storage and 25GB of transfers. I never come close, even posting losts of pictures. That includes email, but I have GMail so I configured my DNS to use that instead of the provider's email.
It's a small operation, not like these big time players like Wix, but there are no ads and no surprises, either. I think ONCE in the 12 or so years I've been hosting there, it was down for more than a few minutes. He gave all affected users an extra week of service.
You don;t HAVE to have your own domain, you get a subdomain with the provider/ However, if you want your content to be portable, you want your own domain name, then you can switch providers and all your old links will still work. is the same no matter who's server I actually host it on, but www.provider1.com/readingeastpenn/images/picture1.jpg and www.provider2.com/readingeastpenn/images/picture1.jpg are not and any old pictures posted to a forum like this would stop working.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Drumguy but beware: very few (if any) cheap hosting plans are actively monitored. If you don’t keep your theme, Wordpress install, plugins etc constantly up to date, you become vulnerable. And you won’t know you’ve been compromised until long after you’ve been hacked. Even more fun, if you get hacked, it will most likey cost north of $500 bucks to have the host “clean” your site—then they will want you to upgrade to a monitored plan for a minimum of 50/month.
but beware: very few (if any) cheap hosting plans are actively monitored. If you don’t keep your theme, Wordpress install, plugins etc constantly up to date, you become vulnerable. And you won’t know you’ve been compromised until long after you’ve been hacked. Even more fun, if you get hacked, it will most likey cost north of $500 bucks to have the host “clean” your site—then they will want you to upgrade to a monitored plan for a minimum of 50/month.
LOL. I know nothing of the companies and don't wish to accuse them, but the way you describe this sounds like the traditional "pay for protection" street scheme. If you don't pay us, "somebody" might burn your business down.
So in order to get proper protection, having a website isn't really free.
Just a funny thought based on how it was described.
- Douglas
I have used Powweb for many years. Have never had any problems and am a happy user. I write my own HTML code for my website. I use Filezilla Client to up load all my material to the site.
https://www.powweb.com/
Bernd
New York, Vermont & Northern Rwy. - Route of the Black Diamonds
protolancer(at)kingstonemodelworks(dot)com
LION hosts the Abbey website on WebMasters, about $100+/yr plus of course the price of a domain name which they can do for you too.
Unlimited email, and for the price of additional domain names I san host as many sub-sites as I like.
Website of BroadwayLION is hosted on my own computer. If you have a spare computer you can host your own website for the cost of a domain name and a static IP number. I use hMailServer as a free MX server and RoundCube as a free web mail access point.
Of course I also have $5000.++ worth of firewall , but that ofcourse is to peotect our entire network (5 servers/30 workstations.)
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
I have several sites with Google Sites. Totally free, but no e-mail although I do have Gmail addresses. Kind of simple, but suits my needs. One is in my signature below.
Bob Boudreau
CANADA
Visit my model railroad photography website: http://sites.google.com/site/railphotog/
Check out the web hosting information on this page:
https://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/ultimate-cheap-web-hosting-guide/
I think Host Metro might be the lowest price. I have used them in the past for websites I have made for others. http://www.hostmetro.com/
If you want a free website for your railroad related stuff then I suggest Trainweb.org
Re: Go Daddy - they spammed me a lot in the early days, they still make you wade through come-on offers whenever I have business there and they are more expensive than others on lots of stuff once you get out of the basic plans.
By contrast 1 & 1 is much easier to work with and the interface, while a bit dated, is very clean.
One thing to consider about the cheapies - if they become unreliable or otherwise go down the tubes - getting your domain name released can be a big hassle...
Thanks to all. I did some more poking around and it is worse than trying to compare BLI vs MTH vs Athearn vs Bachmann.
Reading the reviews for one company, someone gave them 5 stars for customer service, and the very next day someone complained that the customer service was so bad it created a vacuum in outer space.
Guess I'll have to throw a dart at the computer screen and see which provider gets stabbed.
Quick reading of specifically the 1 star reviews of the providers on that site lead me to believe a large majority of those poor reviews are the result of PEBCAK errors, not the provider being less than honest or incompetent.
Domain name registrations cannot be held hostage, so long as you maintain the contact information so that you or someone helping you can always be reached - you can transfer a domain to a different registrar at any time, provided you can provide the required proof to the new registrar that you indeed own the domain name in question. As the owner of the domain name, you also get to specify who handles the DNS. One of those negative reviews, the person said their DNS was held hostage because the old provider wouldn't release the A record in DNS. Horsepucky, as Col Sherman Potter used to say. If you change the name registration and point to some other provider's DNS service, it doesn't matter if the old provider still has an entry for your domain as well, as soon as the TTL expires, no one would ever be looking to the old provider's DNS to find your domain.
I'd run my own web server - I have in the past, but on my residential cable modem I am not permitted to run servers. They actively block mail and web traffic, it's not just because they said it in the rules.
rrinkerlarge majority of those poor reviews are the result of PEBCAK errors
What exactly is a "PEBCAK"? And can it be cured with penicillin?
maxman rrinker large majority of those poor reviews are the result of PEBCAK errors What exactly is a "PEBCAK"? And can it be cured with penicillin?
rrinker large majority of those poor reviews are the result of PEBCAK errors
Problem Exhists Between Chair and Keyboard
It is a fatal error and cannot be fixed.
Now go and inspect your ID10T interface.
BroadwayLionNow go and inspect your ID10T interface.
I refuse to ask what this is.
Woof-Woof
For e-mail I would recommend using (Mircosoft) Hotmail, g-mail, or one of the other free e-mail services with a good history. In my 20 plus years on the internet I have had dozens of e-mail address from internet service providers, websites which I created and also from employers. Websites come and go. So do jobs and internet providers. In that same time I still have my original hotmail account which has never changed.