Best Deals for Online Web Hosting

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  imaximax1 on 30/11/2012 - 13:58

  I use Servers Australia, they give free web hosting for businesses (with ABN).

  As for webpage design, it depends what you want, if its just a simple information site, search for a template online then change what you need.

  Most online designers are abit of a rip off.

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  scotty on 30/11/2012 - 14:40

  +1

  At OzBargain we use Crucial Paradigm — happy with the support and the services they provided (except that SAN network error a few weeks ago that brought down many of their clients off-line for 5 hours).

  As of "free" web page design — you might want to

  1. Install a simple CMS like WordPress
  2. Just google "free wordpress themes" and there are lots of them
  3. Upload your new theme and then start customising :)
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  [Deactivated] on 08/12/2012 - 00:23

  If you're game why not host your own website?
  I managed to do it by

  1. registering a Dynamic DNS username at no-ip.com, installing DNS software so that it forwards to my computer and port forwarding port 80 to my computer on my router
  2. registering a domain at dot.tk that looks alot prettier and forwarding that to your domain.no-ip.com
  3. create a wordpress website with apache.

  The huge drawbacks to doing that are:

  1. you always have to leave your computer on which will probably cost just as much money
  2. your internet connection probably can't handle any real internet traffic ADSL is designed for small uploads and large downloads.
  3. wordpress doesn't allow access locally and remotely so you have to edit the website remotely or always be changing your wp-config.php file whenever you want to edit it locally which also stops people accessing it while you do so.

  It is a great learning experience however.

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    Gina Rinehart on 08/12/2012 - 02:31

    Might be good for some situations, but for his business I wouldn't recommend that as it can be quite unreliable to use your own system (as you'd be using consumer-level ADSL or similar in most cases, which as we all know isn't the most reliable thing out there).

    Also, I'd spend a little on an actual domain, not a dot.tk domain, purely for the fact that with a .com.au domain,
    1. You need an ABN, so it'll prove some legitimacy of you being the actual owner of the business
    2. .tk domains are (for the most part) put much lower in search engines, as they are often filled with spam, etc
    3. .com.au is prettier

    As for web design, I'm no designer but I've got some experience just experimenting and whatnot, I'd be happy to give you some pointers along the way with simply getting it set up, I know how frustrating waiting for forum replies of help can be, it's nice to have someone there on an IM or something.

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    scotty on 08/12/2012 - 08:16

    Agree that while you do learn a lot on how Internet works by setting up your own server at home, it's not the ideal solution for a business. It might even end up cost more.