Branded Web Domain Can Help Your Firm’s Name Register With Clients
Many small businesses and professionals now have their own Internet identity. Instead of the owner of Acme Lumber Co. getting mail at acmelumber@aol.com, he can be steve@acmelumber.com. Having a domain makes your business look more professional. It’s also nice to have your own Web site where customers can find information about your business.
How much is all of this worth?
Some businesses pay thousands of dollars for a Web site and e-mail services. And until recently, everyone had to pay $35 a year simply to register and maintain their Internet address.
Fortunately, competition has made things cheaper--much cheaper. It’s now possible to register your own domain for as little as $8.95 a year; for only $9.95 a year, you can have your own e-mail address and a Web site with your domain.
Prices are falling because domain registration is no longer the exclusive province of Network Solutions (https://www.nsi.com). Although Network Solutions is still the largest domain registrar, it now has plenty of competition. The Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers (https://www.icann.org), which was charged by the United States government to manage domain registrations, has accredited more than 100 companies and organizations as registrars.
I haven’t checked out every registrar on ICANN’s list (https://www.icann.org/registrars/accredited-list.html), but I found one called Go Daddy (https://www.godaddy.com) that charges only $8.95 a year. For that price, Go Daddy will reserve your domain name until you can move it to a Web site hosting service.
GKG (https://www.gkg.net) has a better deal. The College Station, Texas, Internet registrar charges $9.99 a year to register your domain name, but it throws in a free service that allows you to immediately get your own unique e-mail address and Web address.
Once you get to GKG’s site, you enter the Web address you want. If it’s available, you register it by filling out the on-screen form and providing a credit card number for billing. Then you select the “free parking” option and tell the service which e-mail address to forward to.
The next part is a bit trickier. By default, the company gives you a one-page Web site that basically tells you that your site “is coming.” But the company is nice enough to let you modify the HTML code that creates that site. If you know enough about HTML, you can replace that page with anything you want. You also can replace it with four lines that will redirect visitors to any Web site of your choice. You’ll find that code, along with instructions, at https://www.larrysworld.com/redirect.htm.
The company also offers a deluxe service for an additional $14.95 a year that includes more mailboxes and a “catch-all” box so all employees at your business can have their own e-mail address.
As far as I know, this is the cheapest way to get a Web site with a personal URL. There are, however, easier and more convenient options. Several Web hosting companies provide small businesses with inexpensive sites. ValueWeb.com charges $19.95 a month plus a $29.95 set-up fee. I use it for my SafeKids.com site and am very happy with its customer service.
I’m also happy with Brentwood-based CompWebTech (https://www.compwebtech.com), which charges $99 a year with no setup fee for a Web site and five e-mail addresses.
The least expensive full Web hosting service I’ve encountered comes from Tarzana-based https://1dollarhosting.com, which charges only $1 a month plus a one-time $49 setup fee. You get 20 megabytes of disk storage plus one free e-mail account. The catch: Tech support is via e-mail only, unless you’re willing to pay $25 per call.
Technology reports by Lawrence J. Magid can be heard at 2:10 p.m. weekdays on the KNX-AM (1070) Technology Hour. He can be reached at larry.magid@latimes.com. His Web site is at www.larrysworld.com.
