This is meant for the working adults who have money to spare and those new to blogging.
Question : What is a domain?
A domain is the name of your site URL. There are millions of people in this world and if you are lucky, your name is still available for purchase. For me, I can only opt for chanlilian.net because someone else in this world had bought chanlilian.com.
It is very cheap to own a domain name. I am paying around RM35 per year for the name. Even if you are not interested to own a website, you can still buy up the domain for keepsake. In fact, I have just asked my 13 years old if he wants a domain name. I joked with him that one day he may become a very famous celebrity and then, he will have problem if someone else own his name.
Question : What is webhosting?
Webhosting is where your files are stored and people are able to acccess to your website. The webhost can be huge companies aka landlord (price more expensive) or smaller resellers aka renting room (cheaper) . The price for webhosting differs a lot. As for me, I am paying about RM150 per year for a smallish site. As for my parenting site, it goes several fold than my personal one.
Question : Is it very difficult to buy?
Nope. Just go to Malaysian Bloggers Forum and give a shout. If you are pretty, single, young and in skirt, chances are you will have plenty of free offers to help you. If you are male or ‘I am not a girl, not yet a grandma’ like me, chances are LiewCf, PaulTan, BryanSapiens (just to name a few) and many other guys will also offer to help you. Because they are very familiar with this. Just be ready to part with your money and you will get what you want within a day. A forum discussion is going on there.
Question : When should I do it? When my blog has thousands of unique hits per day?
NOW! Because you can preserve all your comments instead of them being wiped out by the free provider. Comments are priceless so it is worth keeping them.
Question : Isn’t this a waste of money?
If you write well,
maintain your blog nicely,
read 5xmom’s series of Blogging Art faithfully
plus staying in the loop within the Malaysian Bloggers Forum,
you can earn money with Google Adsense.
I have earned my webhosting fee within one month after I installed Google Adsense.
Related read :
What’s my name?
Should I go dot net?
You know a few times, I actually went to the chanlilian.com instead, and tot, ey, what happened? close down liao ah?
Ya, I have this fetish of collecting domain names. haha.. Been fortunate to own one of my name, when I bought it in the year 2000. And my name is very common too, so surprise that no one bought it!
Shall not name them here, else aunty lilian not happy that using her website to promote my webby. hahaha…
hmm RM35 per year for a domain name is pretty expensive.
Anyway one suggestion: If you write about a product or service like hosting, perhaps you wanna join an affiliate program since you’ve done all the pre-selling. Can earn more money like that on top of the adsense. 🙂
adrian: expensive? you should have been around when domain names were 25-50USD a year when it was monopolized by internic
Lil, is this inspired by my questions yesterday? 🙂
Where did you get your domain name? There is so many choice out there… I have just PMed PaulTan and LiewCF on this matter as recommended by you. My only issue is to do with installation of software/program – I can’t do that on my machine. 🙁
RM35 per year, my friend. I’m sure if you write good articles, you can easily earn back RM35 in a month. 🙂
Furthermore, if you have your own space to host your blog, you have the room to grow like adding a forum in the future, etc. In fact, there are more benefits.
Bryan – Agree. I paid RM55 before too. No problem with that few dollars because it is the SERVICE, right?
lzbone – Actually, you don’t have to worry about that. It is just like blogger. There is nothing involved in your computer. Once you pick any guy to do the works, they will kau tim sai. You can refer to me if you need any layman terms explained if they sound too techie. No fee. I enjoying showing off. Hahaha.
Paul – Yeah, the price is getting cheaper and cheaper. It is worth investing, buying up a few names to auction next time?
Adrian – I go by the adage, you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. Moreover, I am not very IT-literate so don’t want to get fool with so many ‘cepat kaya skim’ that is going around.
keropokman – Hahaha, I think the other chanlilian is some artist in HK, if I remember? Lucky, not belong to some p*rn sites or else habis. You can seriously go into exporting keropok for a living. BTW, that means you are keeping your real name for keepsakes only? Wow, that’s nice.
aiyah, why didn’t you write this earlier? i went to one m’sia host and subscribe to them like 2 days ago but i still haven’t heard from them on the activation of my a/c. get must be a lousy co! i just read m’siabloggers forum and check out other m’sia hosting co. too. good info.
sammie – Yalor, if you deal with bigger companies, hard to communicate. I used to get from a company with big accounts so I have to open ticket (issue work orders), find the right department etc. But service is more reliable, though. Good luck to you!
yeah, i remembered i paid USD15 in year 2000 for my first domain name. prices have gone down. I have bought some for USD7.99 before.
lil: not sure about the other lilian. but her website empty one, not like yours, so entertaining. ;-p
cannot export keropok lah. thot of it before, but i rather just enjoy eating them 😉 just had some from kelantan. someone brought it back for me.
no lah, (d1) myrealname .com thing is being used, not for keepsake only lah. nothing much, except travelogues. another domain i have (d2) is for whole family to use as email address. that domain is our surname lah. very very common chinese surname, but still manage to get it.
d3 is used as online photo gallery for us adik beradik plus a few close friends. hint hint, site name is, it’s one of pak lah’s fav snack. hehe..
d4 is the name of the town i am born.
d5 is beli dulu, dad’s company name. so pple wont try to take it away.
d6 is a wedding gift to good fren. hosting a password protected RSVP and wedding album for them.
d7 still in the process, found a domain name i like. but waiting for that person to not renew it. mua ha ha ha…
d8 and d9, is church’s website. Not mine anymore. Gave it to church. 🙂
dont buy brand names or registered trademarks, after end up like the fellow blogger who have to give up the famous credit card brand. sigh…
sammie: i still think bigger company better. uptime also better, more reliable. but i think word of mouth from friends is best.
well.. domain and hosting is quite cheap rite now.. owh your domain and hosting give you more access to your website. Free hosting only give us limited access only..