I would also council to separate your domains from your hosting provider. If you have a dispute with your hosting provider you should be able to easily switch hosts. You cannot do this if your domains and hosting are from the same source. It is like separating your email address from your internet provider. Maybe you are lucky and the host provider has farmed this out to a domain names company? Of provided a domain name for free (transfer after one year)?

Bots will try to hack into your web site, and if you have business stuff there that is a bonus for them. A clear separation between the internet and your internal network is always a good idea.

Whatever you can do at home you should be able to set up on your host provider in a test environment. The host should be able to provide a linux session, just like at home.

Take nothing for granted when looking for a host provider. If it does not say backups and restores are available and free, then it is not provided. If not sure, then ask.

Web sites are very easy to put up and maintain, depending on the package you wish to use. Of course having less money means having to learn more.

Don

On 30 October 2017 at 07:39, o1bigtenor <o1bigtenor@gmail.com> wrote:

Greetings

On Mon, Oct 30, 2017 at 6:27 AM, Don Tai <dontai.canada@gmail.com> wrote:

Web hosting can be purchased on the occasional sale, such as Black Friday, so renewal costs can be much higher. I always compare renewal costs and not the initial loss leader signup cost. The 2.7 times higher hosting costs may be valid, depending on the hosting services provided. Moe importantly, what did you buy? Some hosts don't even provide on demand backup, and some hosts will charge you for a restore. Some hosts don't provide SSH. Shared services or a dedicated IP? Reputation, which is very important?

I am getting an education out of this for sure.

What was purchased was 2 domains and a 3 year small business hosting package at hostpapa.

I has become quite clear that what I got was something like buying a car.

Didn't specify that I wanted a steering wheel - - - so I need to add this.

The website builder program - - I didn't use it in the first year - - - its now an extra fee.

Sorry - - - in setting up a complicated small business there are a mountain of things to be done and the website was/is on the list, its just that money is quite short and time keeps disappearing and so things get done when they do.

Its also frustrating when you sign up for x and the renewal is quite a large increase. One would think that the hosting companies might not want you to move.

I would not recommend self-hosting at home. There are too many rogue bots roaming around the world, and the possibility of hacking is near certain. Yes, if you keep up with all the updates and monitor your server carefully you can be ok, but I know that my hosting provider had to purchase additional software just to deal with DDOS attacks and other intrusions. Unless you want to take on the sys admin role, for me the hosting costs are well worthwhile. If you are with the right host, your site becomes more popular and you run out of ram it should be easy to upgrade.

Personally I'd rather concentrate on the web site, SEO and social media than futz with Apache settings, so would rather be on a host provider. The hosting costs can be pretty small, depending on what you purchase.

That was the idea.

My server here is for managing my business - - - not for managing my website - - - that's what I wanted hosting for.

The problem is that I want to experiment on the server here (set up various services at very least) and somehow I can't use these domains that I have paid for.

Likely its a case of me wanting too much and not knowing enough.

I can change the not knowing enough but haven't been able to find information.

My hosting company is quite good at offering a lot of information with much of it being 'non-useful'.

Thanking you for your consideration!!

Dee