Domain name Question

Ive been thinking about making a website for 2 years now. Thought it would be a good project, good for a resume or something too. And it will help me know more about the subject as well.

The question is:


Is it bad to have a domain name with hyphens?

Im not going to put the name out there as I haven't bought it yet, but it has 3 words, which is 6 letters total, and 2 hyphens, one between each word. The words refer to the website and the topic. It is also a .com

My friends are just telling me that you don't really want to use hyphens in domain names. Is it really a bad thing? As the name seems to fit everything right on.

Thanks for the help in advance!

I don't see why you can't use them... it might be a pain for some people to type but they can get over it. I certainly wouldn't mind typing in a hyphen to go to a website, especially one I like. Penny Arcade's site name has a hyphen (www.penny-arcade.com) and so do a couple others I go to. I say go for it man but wait for some other members to give their advice too just in case, lol.

Thanks. Im still not sure if I am going to go for it yet. Its not alot of money to get it up and started, its just whether or not I will actually stick to it. My modding projects have taught me to stick to things more, but I'm not sure if I am ready to stick to a commitment like that and have money go down the drain. Trying to decide if I am ready.

I started a blog last week. So maybe I should stick to that for a while. I put a link up on it for the best site that I actually come back to. thebestcasescenario.com . I was going to put up a few other sites, but no other site keeps bringing me back to it like this one. I also have been clicking on the ads here as well, as I am starting to understand what they are there for and how they benefit this site.


If hyphens are ok I think i will buy the domain and just set it up when I am ready. Its not expensive for a year. How much do places charge you when you want to renew? They don't really say. Sure its 13$ the first year or somehting but are they going to charge you 100$ the next year to renew it? These are things I have to look into. But if hyphens are ok, I might purchase the domain soon.

Domains are generally the same year to year unlesss of course you do get ripped off.
Remember that at the end of the day all you're paying for is DNS server rental.
If youre looking for hosting as well you'll find that many places will do a domain very cheaply if you buy a bundle.

Ya ive found a pretty decent place to get hosting and a domain name, just debating on taking the jump. If i get the domain name I can make the site when I choose so I might just grab the name.

Just didn't know if having hyphens was a bad thing, as none of the main sites i visit ever have them and a few people said they just weren't good to have as people tend to not like them.

I'll add onto what I said before... don't worry about the hyphens. People are just lazy as hell and most don't know how to type so they do the ol' hunt and peck crap.

Good luck with building the site. What're you gonna have it dedicated to? Video game clan, personal site, or what? lol

Was thinking about a site about fixing pc's. Have tutorials for everything. Information about all parts and such. Operating system information and history and such.

Because they say to make a website about what you are good at or what interests you. And this stuff is what does. I figured as I do research on things for articles and tutorials it will help me improve my knowledge and such.

Really it was just an idea that ive had brewing in the back of my head. My issue is that I don't retain information if I don't constantly think about it or write it down so I figured it would help me with that as well.

No one here is going to buy out the domain on me (least i think), either way there are plenty out there to choose from so here was the domain in question.

Fix-a-pc.com



I have started a blog resently so I might grab the domain and hold onto it, and just continue with the blog. I still have a lot to learn about such as getting traffic and such. I just realized how advertisements work and how they are actually really useful and can generate quite a lot of money if you just have the traffic. Thats not what the goal is for but it helps nonetheless.

I am still trying to find myself in the blog so not exactly sure what it will turn to be, or I might make a different one with a different name for pc stuff. I was thinking it would just be my random thoughts, but it could be more than that ive seen.

Here's my blog if you want to check it out and tell me what I should focus on and what to improve. I am going to change the colors and layout as I find although it looks cool, it doesn't feel professional. Either way its just my personal blog. My thoughts and such for now.

how-to-fix-a-pc.com ?

Rules are for fools. There are no rules about what goes for a domain name. If it does what it says on the can people will be finding it thru google and not typing it.

If you had either domain name, the right meta tags, a well designed and implemented site, hot content and some well-seeded links you'd be top ranking (i.e 1st 3 pages) at google quite soon (like in two weeks).

Go with your gut feeling on it.

:)

Thanks CrazyB. Come winter break I will have a ton of time on my hands so maybe that will be the time to launch if I go for this. If I do it I want it to launch with quite a few pages, not just a blank site. Im going to start building a few pages and see if I like what im doing and if it goes well I think I am really going to go for this. Thanks for the support guys.



Edit: Can anyone point me to a good web hosting service? Fast, reliable, affordable, with good customer service? I forgot the one my bud told me about. From the looks at a lot of them, it seems I can get hosting and the domain for a year for around 100$. The basic ones have like 5gb of disk space, and the next step on a lot of them is much higher. Not really sure what I should go for. I guess I have alot more research to do.

Cheap+reliabe http://www.mint-space.com/
Its run by the people behind linuxmint and you can get the 1gb package for $30 if you buy it through the linuxmint site

The price for the lower one seems really nice, but Im concerned with the contact information. The only one they give out in contact us is through email. They do have telephone and fax on site info, but its all what looks to be German numbers. Doesn't seem the easiest to get ahold of if I have issues.

Thank you though.

Any good US hosting services?

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Originally Posted by NightrainSrt4

The price for the lower one seems really nice, but Im concerned with the contact information. The only one they give out in contact us is through email. They do have telephone and fax on site info, but its all what looks to be German numbers. Doesn't seem the easiest to get ahold of if I have issues.

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The guy that operates it is in the Linux mint IRC 99% of the time :p
He also runs all the servers for the mint website and downloads and I can assure you that you shouldnt have any problems.
Just doing my part to support FOSS if you're wondering why I'm pushing it so much :)

I use hostmonster.com 300Gig hosting package with webinstall of anything you could want package wise (CMS, forums, blogs, etc.), unlimited domains, free domain with the package $99 for a year $165 for two.

:)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Crazy Buddhist

I use hostmonster.com 300Gig hosting package with webinstall of anything you could want package wise (CMS, forums, blogs, etc.), unlimited domains, free domain with the package $99 for a year $165 for two.

:)

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Holy **** thats good!!!!

I'm guessing that you pay a bit more for your hosting of freedomforall to keep freedom alive?

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Originally Posted by calumc

Holy **** thats good!!!!

I'm guessing that you pay a bit more for your hosting of freedomforall to keep freedom alive?

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It is good and the service is superb. I'm currently using 340Meg of my 300Gig server space hehe.

Re freedomforall.net - not a lot more .. it's also about $99 a year actually. Would have been $199 a year with a Panamanian front company included so no one knew who owned it, ever, because it's illegal in Panama to ask who owns a company. That would have been pointless though as all the people who want to know do so already.

:)

The only issue I have with symbols in domain names is underscores. People WILL confuse it with a hyphen, (- vs _ ?) Hyphens are fine IMHO.

I think a good rule for domain names is to keep it simple (easier to remember), and not too long (more possibility for misspelling).

www.mydomain.com vs www.thisismydomaindude.com <-- just used to explain my point. I just realized mydomain.com sells domains. haha..


Like that! :D

Mine:
www.mremedia.ca
Company I work for:
www.olds.ca

Short domains FTW. (I dont maintain either of those sites btw.. someone else does it for me.)

Thanks for some of the pointers guys. And I totally understand calumc. Its really tempting because of the price, I just don't care for the lack of contact info, other than that it seems cool. From a business standpoint, I shouldn't have to get on an irc to have contact with the company (not that that is the only way, but im sure you get the point).

I found another domain that might work better. howtofixapc.com is open as well. If your thinking about how to fix a pc, seems like it would suit that task well. Now that Ive been thinking about it that is a whole lot of content that I would have to create. And I don't know everything, as I bet no one does on that topic. I guess I would learn a lot.

I personally think it doesnt matter in a lot of instances. Especially in personal website.

What doesn't matter? The hyphens? Or the host? Sorry just got lost a little bit there.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NightrainSrt4;154144I

found another domain that might work better. howtofixapc.com is open as well. If your thinking about how to fix a pc, seems like it would suit that task well.

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That domain name and the meta description tag "HowtofixaPC.com is where everyone can learn how to fix a PC Computer through video tutorials .... etc , and a great set of keywords. That would do it. Top 30 on google if your content is good and even top ten within a month.

If its there buy it. Hell that costs $15 or less with parking so do it before someone else does even if you never use it. If you go to do it in three months and some other person bought it and is worth $1 million already you'd be sick.

;)

Well I have some bad news for everyone... ... ... :dead:







I am now the owner of the website

www.howtofixapc.com


:banana::banana::banana::banana::banana:


Not only owner of the domain, but currently have webhosting paid in full for the next 2 years.

Holy sh*t I can't believe I just did this. My stomach was in my throat the whole time I was on that page, inputting credit card info, hoping the name was still there, everything.

I have a huge program that I have to write this weekend for college so currently all the page has is a quick html page I threw together in like 2 seconds that says "Currently Under Construction". God I haven't looked at html in years. I might have to use one of those programs to make webpages till I get back into the swing of things.

I went with the host you recommended CrazyB. $5.95 a month or something for two years, all charged at once. Not bad. Seemed like way more space and bandwidth than the other hosts I was looking at. Contact info easy to find. Thanks so much.

+rep to all you guys for getting me motivated. Holy sh*t I can't believe I did this. There is so much content to make soo freakiing much. Holy crap I now own a freaking website, with a killer name nonetheless. OMG

What is a good web page design program. I know of Frontpage and such, that might work. Are there any other good programs?

How did you guys do the new site? Use a program to do it? Or did you guys do all the html "by hand"? You don't have to answer this stuff if you don't want to, a response to the first question above would be suitable as well.

Thanks in advanced guys! God Im still giddy lol

Maybe look into a content management program like joomla.
I havent ever used it but it would be the best route to go if you want to update everything regularly

Yes, Joomla is amazing for setting content stuff up. I currently use it for my website www.motorcitylan.com (Get past the splash page..).

If you need help with that, im more then willing :P

Thanks guys. I might have to check out Joomla. The damn one that they supply through hostmonster.com, PageWizard, which I guess is what most of the hosts supply sucks huge freaking monkey balls.

I cant find anyway for it to let me edit the html code directly, only through drag and drop. It makes the page and saves it, but when I go back to open it up again, it doesn't seem to remember it at all so I can't open it back up.

I really have to find one that works well. I want one that I can make the pages offline. I don't need integration on the host or whatever right now. I'd rather make the pages on my pc, then upload them to the server and put them where I want them. Not sure if that makes any sense, im just frustrated right now. Going to go eat some food and see if that can calm me down. That program forgetting what was saved just bugged me lol. The darn thing can see all the files and such, it just can't seem to let me open them. Arghh lmao

Adobe Dreamweaver is pretty fancy. You could try that.

Thanks. Ill have to research that one as well. Less it came with Photoshop CS2 I got for christmas a long while ago, it was some big package, not sure if it came with that though.

Im not against Microsoft Front Page either, I just remember hearing nothing but criticism of it from my buddies who used to code html. It was prob just anti-microsoft bashing though for all I can remember.

I think I will have to try out Dreamweaver and if that doesn't work just start the website by coding by hand. Have to brush the hell up on my coding though for it to even look semi-respectable.

I installed Joomla on the server and tried using it. I can't figure out for the life of me how to actually create a page. Its like they want you to just use the template they have (or get others) and just change the names of things or something. Not exactly what I want. I couldn't find a place to actually make the damn pages and not use what they have as a template. On top of joomla links EVERYWHERE on the site template.

Also, Im accustomed to html not php which is what joomla is in. I know they are similar but arghhh. For the trouble this looks like I might as well just relearn how to code it all by hand.

I just cant seem to figure out these packages things. The same thing happened to me when i started coding and the teachers had us using packages with compilers and editors and all that crap in one package. Just give me the damn sdk/jdk, let me set my path and give me freaking notepad for crying out loud.


What I need is a blank canvas, that I can creat the design with various tools. Drag and drop stuff and whatnot. And build it up that way. If I can't find something like that then Ill just have to spend the next year coding it from the ground up in my free time. Which might just be better off. Because these package things just seem to be more complicated than they need to be. I can look at code and see the site in my head better than I can try to navigate through 7000 menus and crap just trying how to change the darn color on a button.

Ok, so ive been looking around and it looks like Dreamweaver caters to my style of working/learning. I think I do have a copy that I just never needed. (I asked my parents for software one year and got a crapload of nice programs for school and stuff).

Joomla is probably nice once you get ahold of it, but i don't think csm's are for me, atleast not that type. I don't really want to just pick a template and change text (which is all i could figure out after a few hours of playing with it). I want ease of creation of actual content. Dreamweaver, along with Photoshop seem like they will get me started in the right direction atleast.

Congratulations dude :)

Glad the recommendation fitted your bill. It's a full featured package for sure ... 5,000 email accounts? Hope you have lots of buddies or end up employing thousands ....

You might want to use Joomla or Mambo as a CMS and Dreamweaver and Photoshop once you work out what a CMS can do for you (i.e instantly create a new page in your style from your content and integrate it seamlessly with your predefined templates, manage user accounts, etc.).

If you are ever going to have registered users and forums or any other user generated content you are may be better off starting with a CMS now and jumping the hurdle of getting a hold of it rather than deciding to inject your existing content into one later.

Hostmonster has loads of installers built in and forum software (SMF, phpBB) which you can integrate into the whole system using one user database for the whole site. They install on the click of a button. I don't know what that pagewizard thing is but it looks top crapola ... go to "Fantastico Delux" on your domain control panel (the spooky fat blue smiley face) and there is a list of ready to install packages to play around with e.g:

"Content Management
Drupal
Geeklog
Joomla
Mambo Open Source
PHP-Nuke
phpWCMS
phpWebSite
Post-Nuke
Siteframe
Xoops"

Click on the package, click on a couple more buttons and you have your CMS installed :)

I'd never used php before but I'm getting into it really nicely after a couple of months though I only need to do little bits for my forum and haven't gone with a CMS because my site is simple and for a simple purpose: it's a forum.

Looking forward to seeing where this takes you.

Matthew

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Originally Posted by NightrainSrt4

Ok, so ive been looking around and it looks like Dreamweaver caters to my style of working/learning. I think I do have a copy that I just never needed. (I asked my parents for software one year and got a crapload of nice programs for school and stuff).

Joomla is probably nice once you get ahold of it, but i don't think csm's are for me, atleast not that type. I don't really want to just pick a template and change text (which is all i could figure out after a few hours of playing with it). I want ease of creation of actual content. Dreamweaver, along with Photoshop seem like they will get me started in the right direction atleast.

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Congrats dude. Can't wait to see what you do with the site. I had joomla running on my site for a while, but didn't play around with it enough to really get a hang of it. I know .Mal runs his site through Joomla as a CMS, and it looks pretty good. I'm sure he can offer some help. For my current site, http://sgtm.homelinux.com, I just found a template that was nice, and I'm running phpBB for a forum. I don't have that much content, it's just something fun to play with.

I should mention the difference between your site and mine and .Mal's is our servers are at home, and you have a regular web host.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NightrainSrt4

Im not against Microsoft Front Page either, I just remember hearing nothing but criticism of it from my buddies who used to code html. It was prob just anti-microsoft bashing though for all I can remember.

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Frontpage is the biggest piece of crapola ever .. dreamweaver even has a "strip unwanted frontpage html" function in it !!!

I once made a ten page static website for someone and stupidly ran it through frontpage. Not having Dreamweaver around I then spent several hours removing the extraneous code by hand.

We're talking four pages of HTML for each page on the site being reduced to about 1/2 a side/one side by the time I was done.


Your buddies were complaining with justification.

:)

Thanks guys. Ya I'm glad I went for it. Now I have a lot of work ahead of me to get it where I want to be. I tried again with joomla and trying a template that looked ok, but it just doesn't seem fit for me(and all the templates ive looked at had either names of who created it or whatever which is completely understandable but I want the site to be mine, not have someone elses badge on it). I might look around and try another CSM once I get a couple pages done with dreamweaver.


As for frontpage ya, i looked up why it sucks lol. The coding is bloated like hell and is pretty much optimized only for IE, so firefox users get a slap in the face. Apparently microsoft claims theyve gotten better, but ehh. Ill shy away from Frontpage lol as I haven't touched IE in over 3 or 4 years.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NightrainSrt4

but it just doesn't seem fit for me(and all the templates ive looked at had either names of who created it or whatever which is completely understandable but I want the site to be mine, not have someone elses badge on it)

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Why not tweak the hell out of it?
Most people that make templates dont mind you changing altogether as long as you give them credit for the original work.

Quote:

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Why not tweak the hell out of it?

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Because I can't figure out how to do much of anything in Joomla through the control panel thing. If I could actually figure out how to get through the actual pages and edit things I would. All I can find is how to edit text.

I could try to look through the html/php and change things that way, but as I alluded to in earlier posts I haven't looked at html since I was like 15 or 16. So 4 to 5 years ago. So trying to remember everything is going to take a long time.

I clicked to add the WYSIWYG editor on installation, but I can't find how the hell to use that either, or where to even get to it. Im about to give it another look because theres no point on installing dreamweaver on this laptop as most of my graphics would come from photoshop and quite frankly this laptop isn't up to the task as well as I would like it to be. I'd rather use my desktop, but that is currently dissasembled due to Project: Nightrain paint issues. So I guess I will look through Joomla again and see what I can dig up.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NightrainSrt4

Thanks guys. Ya I'm glad I went for it. Now I have a lot of work ahead of me to get it where I want to be. I tried again with joomla and trying a template that looked ok, but it just doesn't seem fit for me(and all the templates ive looked at had either names of who created it or whatever which is completely understandable but I want the site to be mine, not have someone elses badge on it). I might look around and try another CSM once I get a couple pages done with dreamweaver.

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Nightrain,

I've heard seriously good things about Mambo and it's a 2 click install with fantastico on hostmonster. There is an online demo here:

http://www.mamboserver.com/index.php...=35&Itemid=116

If you are ever going to have forums (IMHonestO I think any how-to site is best with them) SMF (Simple Machines Forum) is also a 2 click install and there is an excellent mambo-SMF bridge that integrates the two seamlessly.

If you find mambo works for you, though the learning curve may be steep initially, the work load of maintaining site content later will be fractional and pay it back several times.

Having spent several years in publishing and marketing I can tell you that getting the ground right makes all the difference. It may be that you experiment for a month before turning your mind to "real" work on the site - if that's so it will be a month well spent.

Does dreamweaver effectively do anything a CMS does? Maybe - it's a good three or four years since I used it and it's a great product. The problem with HTML though is it's all static, and although using css you can make site wide design changes, you can't easily undo/change the hand or machine coded html.


Looking forward to seeing the site when it's done dude.

:)

Matthew

Thanks CrazyB. I was looking through Fantastico and it had quite a bit of things that you could install easily. I will try mambo. Shoot ill try all of them till I find one that works. Im not afraid of a high learning curve. I just want the ability to change much of everything if I choose and I just didn't find that easily with joomla. It seemed like you were stuck to the template you chose a little too tightly for my liking. In a template, I want one I can build up, not have to break it all down before I build it up. Just feels like wasted time to me.

Thanks, ill look into mambo after classes.

Well I tried out Mambo, and it is pretty much like Joomla. But I have found some things a little bit more simple even though much of it looks almost exactly the same.

I still can't figure out how to edit the actual template, as in the pictures and stuff. I can remove buttons/links and all that, but I am bound to the restrictions originally set in the template. Maybe I can make a template in Dreamweaver and then import it into Mambo?

I took down the "currently under construction" page and left my progress up so you guys can look at it and maybe help me figure out how to get rid of some of this stuff/change things. The thing is, I think some of it is static html that I can't get to, like the picture above the top bar.

www.howtofixapc.com

At the very least, I am starting to understand how to use the CSM's a little bit more. I stipped what I didn't want and changed others. This is just playing around trying to get used to it.


Edit: Before I posted this I already had someone else looking at the site(other than me). I just opened the darn thing up so you guys could help me with it lol and someone already found it. Too bad I don't have any content up yet.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NightrainSrt4

I still can't figure out how to edit the actual template, as in the pictures and stuff. I can remove buttons/links and all that, but I am bound to the restrictions originally set in the template. Maybe I can make a template in Dreamweaver and then import it into Mambo?

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You will have to go into the css and edit it. It's not hard - there will be tutorials on the web for sure. Also just look at the source code of your page and see what images it's loading then replace them with your own. There is a dreamweaver mambo plugin here but it's $49 and appears to just do the css anyway - maybe nothing you can't learn in a day.


:)

ps some mambo tutorials here:

http://www.mambohut.com/content/section/3/86/

Thanks CrazyB. I just was about to post that after looking in the directories that I found the actual pictures that it is putting into the website. I should be able to use photoshop and just change everything and just upload it and keep the same naming scheme they had and it should all work. Tomorrow I am going to give it a shot with just basic stuff and see if it works.

I should be able to just edit everything now that I know where it is. If this works, all I have to do is pick a template that I like where everything is, and then just change all the images and colors and such to what I choose. Cool, I am excited.



Edit: Ya this looks easy now. I am still kinda bound by the basic layout structure of the template, but this is definitely workable. I can do this. I could probably change everything if I understood what the css code meant, but i dont. I could learn though. I think I can do this.