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I have helped several folks move off GoDaddy as they were very unhappy with them. Finding a good but inexpensive site is hard, I'm with Web Hero and find them pretty good but their e-mail system is weak if you want to get your mail there.

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I did an analysis several years ago, and godaddy looked good... but Hostmonster looked better. This has since turned out to be a good choice. I have built modest websites on hostmonster using weebly, wordpress, and Dreamweaver. Costs are $3.95 monthly with a three-year contract.

 

Hostmonster and bluehost merged a few years ago... and support is in Salt Lake City.

Jim

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Aside from their soft porn ads and general lack of ethics like buying up names you use their service to search for and then charging you a premium to get them back that keeps me far away from them... Folks I helped found their site builder tools too complicated to use and too limited/inflexible.

 

A google on godaddy problems, avoid godaddy or leave godaddy all turn up lots of pages, they advertise a lot and have some really cheap options that make them look bigger than they are but for most people other options are better.

 

I like this page, lays out their reasons and suggests other places that are better.

 

http://www.authormedia.com/6-reasons-authors-should-avoid-godaddy/

 

On line reviews are really iffy, unethical companies pay for fake reviews and the water is so muddy you can't tell what is real. This is part of an article on picking a good host.

 

http://researchasahobby.com/best-website-hosting-companies-fooling/fake-web-hosting-reviews-recognize/

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If you are looking for an operating program for a website I suggest you take a look at Joomla.

I have a friend whose website was built under Joomia and then his web hoster went out of business. The website couldn't be moved since it was so integrated with the web hoster. WordPress and Drupal are better options for Content Management Systems.

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Drupal is more flexible. Wordpress is easier. Jumla seems OK, but I have heard plenty of negatives about it. I've personally chosen Wordpress with appropriate templates.

Actually, I didn't select Joomla but our son who is webmaster for me and also a professional software developer chose it. He likes the open architecture of it as well as the wide range of add-ons available.

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homelesshartshorns, Please post the list of free websites that give you control of your site and don't slap up a bunch of ads that may be inappropriate. I spent a lot of time looking for such a host and never found one.

 

I haven't used any of the provider's site builders in the past on my sites having had the portability issues others have mentioned with a couple sites I helped with while I was working. I have helped several people move from one host to another and it is often close to a "just start over" situation. A tool that can really help is "wget" that can make a local copy of your entire site on your hard drive. That allows you to copy/paste and hack away using a better editor than most of the on-line ones.

 

https://www.gnu.org/software/wget/

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Has anyone used GoDaddy to build their website? If so, what were the hidden fee's, clauses, etc?

It seems easier to have an independent site than a blogger site.

Any catches?

Years ago I built a website using GoDaddy website. It was a learning curve but fairly easy to use. It really depend what you are going use the website for.

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homelesshartshorns, Please post the list of free websites that give you control of your site and don't slap up a bunch of ads that may be inappropriate. I spent a lot of time looking for such a host and never found one.

 

I haven't used any of the provider's site builders in the past on my sites having had the portability issues others have mentioned with a couple sites I helped with while I was working. I have helped several people move from one host to another and it is often close to a "just start over" situation. A tool that can really help is "wget" that can make a local copy of your entire site on your hard drive. That allows you to copy/paste and hack away using a better editor than most of the on-line ones.

 

https://www.gnu.org/software/wget/

 

Sounds like a challenge! http://zymic.com/ There are all kinds of ways to have your own blog: http://homelesshartshorns.blog.com/ and or if your aggressive an on line store: http://rivaltrailers.zxq.net/store.htm.

 

Now I must admit these options will require more than point and click, My point is you don't have to spend any money at all yet to get yourself on line, and with out ads..

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Looking at the Zymic site I see a few issues that make it impractical for me, others might be good with the limits. Disk Space 6000MB Data Transfer (Monthly)50GB, couldn't find counts of accounts per server but it appears to be quite high which leads to speed problems for you and your visitors. The TOS has a few problems too: "You understand and acknowledge that your continued use of our free hosting service is conditioned on your domain remaining registered with us and not violating our other stated conditions." "You agree that Zymic.com may terminate Your password, account, Zymic.com Site, use of the System, or use of any other Zymic.com service, and remove and discard any Content within the System, for any reason," and "You agree that Zymic.com may terminate Your password, account, Zymic.com Site, use of the System, or use of any other Zymic.com service, and remove and discard any Content within the System, for any reason," read the whole thing and be sure you are happy with it.

 

Another few review sites do include Zymic:

 

http://www.hostjury.com/reviews/zymic

 

http://freehosting1.net/reviews/zymic.com.aspx

 

http://www.webhostingstuff.com/review/Zymic.html

 

The rival trailers site looks to be hosted on Zymic but the store seems to be a miidu.com store site that is not free.

 

http://www.miiduu.com/free-online-store-pricing

 

I didn't look at blog sites since I don't want or need one.

 

I did some more looking and found this rating site, seems reasonable, doesn't include Zymic though. Some of these offers might meet your needs if you are doing a very basic site but not what I need.

 

http://www.free-webhosts.com/search-webhosts.php?ORDER=17

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The problem with doing a free basic site is that if it ever grows and has to be transitioned to ANYTHING else it is going to be traumatic. Ask me how I know - I started out with a free Tripod site. Moving it to 1&1 was basically "start over and pray".

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Looking at the Zymic site I see a few issues that make it impractical for me, others might be good with the limits. Disk Space 6000MB Data Transfer (Monthly)50GB, couldn't find counts of accounts per server but it appears to be quite high which leads to speed problems for you and your visitors. The TOS has a few problems too: "You understand and acknowledge that your continued use of our free hosting service is conditioned on your domain remaining registered with us and not violating our other stated conditions." "You agree that Zymic.com may terminate Your password, account, Zymic.com Site, use of the System, or use of any other Zymic.com service, and remove and discard any Content within the System, for any reason," and "You agree that Zymic.com may terminate Your password, account, Zymic.com Site, use of the System, or use of any other Zymic.com service, and remove and discard any Content within the System, for any reason," read the whole thing and be sure you are happy with it.

 

Another few review sites do include Zymic:

 

http://www.hostjury.com/reviews/zymic

 

http://freehosting1.net/reviews/zymic.com.aspx

 

http://www.webhostingstuff.com/review/Zymic.html

 

The rival trailers site looks to be hosted on Zymic but the store seems to be a miidu.com store site that is not free.

 

http://www.miiduu.com/free-online-store-pricing

 

I didn't look at blog sites since I don't want or need one.

 

I did some more looking and found this rating site, seems reasonable, doesn't include Zymic though. Some of these offers might meet your needs if you are doing a very basic site but not what I need.

 

http://www.free-webhosts.com/search-webhosts.php?ORDER=17

 

 

I would have to confess I do not deal with fortune 500 company sites. I am offering suggestion to guys that want to have the fun of having a web site, blog or on line store. With out breaking the bank. Most people I help don't understand what "6000MB Data Transfer (Monthly)50GB" even is! I only suggest that you don't have to spend money to put yourself on the internet... Have fun and keep the little guys in the dark..

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  • 1 month later...

FWIW, we use MacHighway for hosting and iWeb (no longer provided as part of iLife or supported by Apple) for web page design. $10.00/year for domain registration and +/- $40.00/year for web hosting. Includes 5 email addresses and numerous other benefits. Have been happy thus far...

 

Bob

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I have two sites of my own on Bluehost and one of them gets about 4,000 hits a day and generates enough money from ads to pay for the hosting and fill the tank up on my Jeep a couple of times a month.

 

One site started 5 years ago and the other about 3 years ago; I moved my sites to Bluehost after we closed out our ISP and sold the clients to another local ISP. The Adsense Scorecard is always 5 blue stars (or maybe they're asterisks) for "site health". I don't put all the ads on that Google would like so I only get 4 stars for "revenue optimization".

 

I find that I can communicate 1-to-1 with admins there and I have ssh access; which I prefer over whatever other editing system. I just make a backup of a file and use vi to change it as needed. However I've heard that managing a site there is extremely easy, updates to Wordpress and phpbb3 are painless. I also run PIWIK (a website analytics application) which uses the MYSQL database which is included.

 

One site runs Wordpress and the other runs a phpbb3 forum. Cost is about $300 every 3 years. As my traffic grew they moved the site to better servers at no extra cost. I have also put 3 clients on them.

 

WDR

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I roll my own server with Digital Ocean, but then again I'm a professional Front End Developer. :)

 

GoDaddy is crap. Namecheap for domains, 1and1 & Hostgator are good options. I've pretty much built half my career around WordPress, I recommend it to new comers. You can also roll a WordPress.com account with a custom URL if you don't want to host your own WordPress.org.

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