The most popular and easily-remembered domain names are being reserved daily, at the rate of one domain name every 5 seconds. If you want to be a serious Internet player, you must have your domain already registered by now at one of the best domain registrars. However, do not make these mistakes when registering your domain name.

Not registering a domain yourself

You know how some business owners today prefer ‘one-stop’ service and delegate everything to a freelance web programmer, a webmaster or a web designer, even for the domain registration part? At first website owners may not encounter any problem, especially when they are paying promptly. The programmer/designer may also be delivering the job nicely initially. Having said that, as time goes by, website owners might have lost contact with the freelancer and the domain name is about due for renewal. Who is suppose to renew the domain now?

Then unknowingly, the domain name registration expires and is automatically, electronically gobbled up by opportunistic domain squatters. These domain squatters then register the expired domain in hopes that the original owner will be highly motivated to purchase the domain name at a much higher asking price. Most often, squatters might ask for $200 to $2000. Sometimes, it could be even more.

If this happens to you, the only thing you could do is to wait for the domain to expire and rush to register the domain name back. With some luck you may get it back. Thus, to guard yourself from this protential problem, it is highly recommended to register a domain name yourself.

Getting a website hosting from your domain registrar

You may think that since you already have a domain name at Godaddy, then you should also get a website hosting from Godaddy. Many people including us still regretted the day we decided to use the domain registrar as our website hosting. Here are some horror stories:

Let’s put it this way: access to the GoDaddy Hosting Panel was so slow that at times I could brew a cup of good old Spiced Indian Tea before the page would load. It’s one thing to have the front end run slow, but to log in, create email addresses, or use their file manager, or create databases with their custom interface was the most painful experience I have ever had as a web designer. In addition, if you ever had to log on to the customized phpMyAdmin interface to access the MySQL Databases, well, you’d have to go make some more tea. Run time between queries with phpMyAdmin is very slow, and it makes for an over all pathetic experience as a webmaster.

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Now, when you’re running the front end, it’s just as bad. I switched to several different packages as a reseller: from VPS Hosting to Semi Dedicated to Economy to Deluxe. They all run at stone-age speeds, and the front end experience is so bad, especially if you’re querying a database, that the website may occasionally time out…

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I’ve been hosting with Godaddy for several years. Each time we’ve had a problem ie web site crash, I’ve ended up upgrading to a more expensive option. When our site went down for over 24 hours, they had not answer except they are working on it. This is inexcusable for such a large corporation. I ended up upgrading again to a dedicated server and this still was slow! They have very friendly customer service reps but TERRIBLE technology…

To not single out Godaddy, we have also searched for reviews from other ICANN accredited web domain registrars such as Netfirms. The experiences were somewhat similar to Godaddy. You can find horror stories all over the web.

So what to do when you need a website hosting? See the last section of this article for tips on finding a wonderful domain hosting.

Paying more than necessary for a domain name

You only should pay extra for a premium domain name, i.e the domain has been registered by somebody else so they can sell at higher price. A domain name is a domain name. You pay to reserve the name. By paying $35/year instead of $10/year does not give you:

• a special place in Google search result
• a website. You still need a website built!
• a website hosting (see the first mistake above)

Thinking all domain registrars are the same

They are not. Try getting the domain from an ICANN accredited company. There are many resellers out there. They cannot give the same support like these big companies can. Instead of getting a domain name from a Godaddy reseller, you should get straight from Godaddy because usually the price will be cheaper.

Using a free domain name for business

There are a few places where you can get free top level domains (TLDs). These dot.tk, .co.nr or .co.cc domains are only used by spammers and phishing scammers. There are many reasons not to use a free domain name.

These domain names:

• makes it hard for your customers to remember your address (not the regular .COM, .NET, .ORG etc)
• indicates you are NOT a serious Internet player
• does not help to brand your image
• reduces the level of trust and integrity to your site
• many search engines refuse to list pages from free domains

Do you have more suggestions on what to avoid when registering a domain name? Please share with us below.

How to Find a Good Domain Hosting

For starter, look for these important criterions:

1. has friendly Live Chat for everything, from tech support to billing (not only for sales),
2. rated at least A by Better Business Bureau (BBB)
3. lets you try their service for free or at very low price for first month
4. has at least 30 days money back guarantee
5. has cPanel so you can manage the hosting account easily
6. gives multiple add-on domains,
7. beginners may want a friendly Site Builder with many unique templates
8. has Fantastico and QuickInstall to quickly install apps like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, OSCommerce, ZenCart and more
9. can be easily upgraded to VPS or one of the cheap dedicated server plans if and when your business require.

An excellent web hosting that meets all the above would be Hostgator. We have been using them for more than 7 years and could not recommend anything better. Hostgator is rated A+ by BBB, has 45 days money back guarantee, gives you cPanel and 4500+ website templates. Use Hostgator coupons 2014 below to save more:

If you are still not sure if HG is right for you, or you have specific query about anything at all, try the Live Chat at HG. They are quite fast and extremely knowledgeable.