Several of our clients are in a situation where they have their domain name and web hosting services provided by their Internet Service Provider (ISP). While this may have seemed a good idea at the time to keep these services under the one provider (and no doubt the ISP’s would have trumpeted this logic) – people are now discovering the marked difference in prices and administrative controls provided between ISP’s providing these ‘add-on’ services, and those of dedicated website hosting and domain name providers.
The most frustrating part about dealing with many ISP’s for domain name registration is how little control you end up having over your domain – even to the point where it can sometimes be registered on your behalf by your ISP, who will then name themselves as the official registrant – effectively giving them ownership of the domain name YOU paid for! The lack of online domain name management services provided by many ISP’s for their customers is also downright appalling.
There are many options out there now where you can register domain names cheaply and also get website hosting for a great price. It may seem an imposition to have these services managed at different websites, but the fact is that ISP’s most of the time are simply re-selling these services and whacking on a big margin for themselves. Take 5 minutes right now to Google ‘website hosting australia’ and check out the pricing for most of the bigger web hosts, then check out some of your local ISP websites. You’ll be surprised.
FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH…
Our recommended domain name provider is Crazy Domains (www.crazydomains.com.au) – you may have seen their new ads featuring Pamela Anderson. These guys are a really good option when purchasing domain names in Australia. (Crazy Domains now also provide web hosting services on both Linux and Windows platform, however we are still ‘testing the waters’ as far as their hosting services go, and we will gladly endorse them for hosting if they measure up.) But as far as domain name management goes, it doesn’t get much more affordable and easy to use.
Right now for a Linux website hosting company in Australia you can’t go past Webcity (www.webcity.com.au). These guys have been around for a while now and have steadily improved over the years, before really coming of age over the past 24 months as a genuine quality web hosting provider in terms of price, features, uptime, load speed and support. Check them out – the inclusions in their Business hosting packages are fantastic.
While we recommend these two providers for your domain name and hosting needs, remember there are plenty of options out there. This is a great scenario as far as being a customer goes, but it really is a minefield out there and unfortunately most of the time you need to learn the hard way about just how bad a web hosting or domain name provider can be. Hopefully I’ve given you food for thought in this post, if nothing else!
One thing is for certain – don’t let your ISP take control of your domain name! Before you purchase a domain name make sure you can login and manage any aspect of your domain 24/7. Stay in control by registering your domain name with a dedicated domain provider like Crazy Domains and let your ISP stick to what they do best – providing you with access to the internet.
’til next time,
Kev
E.Marketing Services