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r_van_voorhis

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<p>Hello,<br>

This is my first time posting but I have been a lurker for a while.<br>

I have a couple questions about building a website. <br>

I have googled and see that a commonly recommended place to obtain a domain name is namesilo.com Has anyone had experience with this website?<br>

Also there was a recommendation to use hostgator, inmotion, and site5. From my google searches it seems inmotion is in the lead. Do you guys have any comments on those host sites?<br>

Lastly, I will be adding wordpress and will be purchasing a theme. I have found two top contenders and I wanted to know your opinions on the two. <br>

One is called Story<br>

(http://themeforest.net/item/story-creative-responsive-multipurpose-theme/7824993?WT.ac=search_item&WT.oss_phrase=photography&WT.oss_rank=42&WT.z_author=pexeto)<br>

and the other is My Folio<br>

(http://themeforest.net/item/my-folio-retina-ready-wp-photography-theme/4646085?WT.ac=search_item&WT.oss_phrase=photography&WT.oss_rank=71&WT.z_author=tommusrhodus).<br>

I am leaning towards Story because it is simple looking but still looks like it is versatile. I feel like the My folio one will limit me later as I start to get more business and want to change things up. For the price, I don't want to change up the theme for some time. <br>

If you have any other comments that could help it would be greatly appreciated.<br>

Thanks.</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>I register my domains through GoDaddy and host my sites at stablehost.com. Both are reliable, accessible and reasonably priced. I considered purchasing a theme but eventually settled on the Suffusion theme from Aquoid: easy to modify, adequate support and the price is right. <a href="/website-creation-forum/I%20register%20my%20domains%20through%20GoDaddy%20and%20host%20my%20sites%20at%20stablehost.com.%20Both%20are%20reliable,%20accessible%20and%20reasonably%20priced.%20I%20considered%20purchasing%20a%20theme%20but%20eventually%20settled%20on%20the%20Suffusion%20theme%20from%20Aquoid:%20easy%20to%20modify,%20adequate%20support%20and%20the%20price%20is%20right.%20http:/aquoid.com/news/themes/suffusion/">http://aquoid.com/news/themes/suffusion/</a></p>
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Here' my opinion, based on spending most of my available free time for the better part of a month building a website. My suggestion

would be that the initial cost of hosting and buying a theme have very little to do with the overall time and investment into a new website.

That is of course, unless you have absolutely nothing else to do with your time. First, it took several weeks to evaluate if I should build my

own website. The most you'll save by going with the lowest priced hosting is less than $100. per year. Your time to research hosting and

the providers service, up time etc, is worth far more.

 

Eventually I decided on Photocrati because of positive reviews posted online, "legendary" customer service (which turns out to be a

email exchange only, no phone support) and their eCommerce features which is the most important feature for my needs. After all the

time invested so far, my conclusion is that: A) nothing is perfect unless you are a genius. B) 95% of online reviews are fake, they are

solicited and paid for. Fake and paid reviews are most of what you see and should not be trusted. When you find something you think you

like, read the fine print and you'll see that the reviewer is hiding in plain site (pun intended), that is to say they admit they are an "affiliate"

and get paid for what they recommend.

 

You did right thing by asking for advice in this forum, but as you can see unless your topic is controversial, or unless you hit on a topic

that has a lot of know it alls, it is hard to get a response here. Unfortunately you are asking the competition to help you beat them. Just

my two cents, but I believe the lack of responses to your query speaks volumes.

 

So here are my answers: I am not nearly as thrilled with the Photocrati theme as I was when I paid for it, but it was under $70.00. No

biggie. so I'm sticking with it for at least a year. As for hosting, I went with Host Gator, but a reliable source recommended Blue Host and

maybe that would have been better, who knows for sure. Look at rankings, fake or realm there is a fraction of difference between the top

five hosts. I do know, from experience that after two chat sessions with Host Gator, both taking 30 minutes of waiting for a real person to

begin, both of my easy questions were answered with non-answers, so they were no help at all. Good luck, stick with it and set aside

plenty of "free time".

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<p>Jim,<br>

Thank you for your feedback on Photocrati and HostGator and for your thoughtful response. I was hoping to generate a little more feedback on this forum. I have looked at other topics and some do generate more feedback than others. ;-) Did you get a chance to review the two themes I posted? Do you have a preference for either? One I feel is a little more interesting but I don't want to take away from the photography but I also don't know if the other looks too plain and outdated which is a common sight. </p>

 

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  • 6 months later...

<p>My two sites:<br>

http://drweddingphotography.com/ (core theme) & http://druane.com (wynn) are both hosted and domains purchased through TSOhost (https://www.tsohost.com/).<br>

The customer service is excellent, I have called many times and have never had to wait more than a couple of minutes. The staff who answer have always been very knowledgeable on the workings of wordpress / SQL databases / FTP etc. The email support is very fast and effective as well. <br>

I think I paid about £18 for 2 years domain renewal, and the hosting costs £35 per year, including 2.5gb webspace, up to 4 sites, 25 email accounts, 5 SQL databases.<br>

They also have built in tools for site migration and a simplified wordpress setup.<br>

Everything has been very well managed since I moved to them.<br>

Just for the record, I am only a customer of theirs and have no vested interest in recommending them.<br>

themeforest is a great place to buy the themes, as it's always easy to download updates and invoices. Out of the two I prefer Story, just make sure it handles portrait orientation pictures well. Both look like they'll do a fine job.<br>

Hope that helps.</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>Tim said:</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>As for hosting, I went with Host Gator, but a reliable source recommended Blue Host and maybe that would have been better, who knows for sure . . .</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Note that BlueHost and HostGator were both bought my EIG in 2013. I only noticed this when my server inexplicably moved from Texas to Utah (BlueHost) one night. Many claim that the previously acclaimed HostGator service level has declined since the EIG acquisition. I agree, and believe that EIG is over-selling their server space. I'm currently with HostGator, which is serving some of the slowest WordPress pages on the net. I'm not ready to move to a managed server, but I'm not sure at all where to go next since 99.999% of online hosting reviews are fake, sponsored or affiliate-based.</p>

<p>Note that WordPress sites in particular are dynamically generated; i.e., they're not static HTML pages being served by a single server. It takes a competent service provider who isn't over-selling their space to provide snappy WordPress pages. Here's one of my WordPress sites, which has minimal plug-ins, which always seems a bit on the pokey side: <a href="http://lightbasics.com/">http://lightbasics.com/</a></p>

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<p>Domain Registrars:</p>

<p>As far as domains go, I have domains at several registrars, but have most of them at Network Solutions (netsol.com). I'm a long-time NetSol customer, and have been using them since the mid-1990s. I've stayed with them mainly because they have the best billing interface, one that's much easier to see what's expiring, when, and if they're auto-renewing or not. Most other registrars have very tricky interfaces (e.g., HostGator) designed to make it hard to tell when your domain is expiring or whether it's on auto-renew. Note that NetSol will register domains as cheaply as everyone else, but you have to call them on the phone to get that price (don't do it online!). I think the only domain I have registered elsewhere is for my SmugMug account, since their domain partner allows for near-instant propagation.</p>

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<p>I said:</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>I'm currently with HostGator, which is serving some of the slowest WordPress pages on the net . . . Here's one of my WordPress sites, which has minimal plug-ins, which always seems a bit on the pokey side: <a href="http://lightbasics.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://lightbasics.com/</a></em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Well, that's odd. I just tried clicking my own link, and my WordPress site is now faster than it's ever been. Perhaps HostGator found they began losing customers in droves after the EIG acquisition, and they've finally realized it's time they cleaned up their act.</p>

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<p>Darren, not to burst your bubble, but your two WordPress sites are coming up even slower than mine. Tim, since we're both at HostGator, would you mind posting a link to your site so I could make some casual load-time comparisons? By the way, my customer support experience with HostGator has been very good, and excellent with Network Solutions. Short to no wait times (especially late at night when I work on my sites). Both provide 24/7 phone support.</p>
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