Free registration & hosting

April 7, 2006 7:34 PM

Free domain registration & hosting. Hope me.

I don't even know if this is possible.

For various reasons, I need the following things:

1) A free domain registrar who won't own the name. What I mean is, someone who will register for free, but let me take over the domain again--for a reasonable, disclosed-up-front fee--when it's time to reregister next year.

2) Free webhosting. Only free for now, I'll be able to move to something that's paid within a couple of months.

3) The ability to put a wiki at the site.

4) An email address would be nice, but only one is necessary.

posted by dirtynumbangelboy to Computers & Internet (11 answers total)

That's usually an either or proposition dirtynumbangelboy.

My company provides a free domain name for the first year for many of our plans starting at $7 a month.

Some places will give you a small free hosting account if you buy a domain name.

I don't know of any that will do both.
posted by FlamingBore at 7:58 PM on April 7, 2006

1) A free domain registrar who won't own the name. What I mean is, someone who will register for free, but let me take over the domain again--for a reasonable, disclosed-up-front fee--when it's time to reregister next year.

Why is $8 too much to pay? If you use the referral code "AMZ" (amz = Amazon, I found this out from a flier stuck in an Amazon box) on GoDaddy registrations are only $1.50, although the renewals will still be regular price. Yes, the go daddy guy was in favor of Gitmo, but he later apologized/retracted/sortof his original essay.

I dunno about free hosting, but I'd recommend you give dokuwiki a shot as a wiki. All you need is a PHP engine, and it does it's file management, so you don't need a database. It's probably the easiest wiki to setup, but there might be issues with file permissions.

Also, can you really not afford $7/mo? Dreamhost offers that, and if your wiki is popular you can put up adsense ads and maybe make your $7/mo back.
posted by delmoi at 7:58 PM on April 7, 2006

And any free hosting page will stick ugly ads on your pages.
posted by delmoi at 7:59 PM on April 7, 2006

If $7/mo for dreamhost is still too much, you could try for $7/year (including domain). It worked for me about three weeks ago.
posted by arco at 8:42 PM on April 7, 2006

Send me an email and I can host your domain on my dreamhost account. I have oodles of space left and ads more than pay the yearly fee.
posted by yellowbkpk at 8:49 PM on April 7, 2006

...ads on another site, not yours.
posted by yellowbkpk at 8:50 PM on April 7, 2006

what about office live? it got mentioned in a thread earlier today, and it seems to be giving away a domain + email. i've only just seen the homepage, though, i can't vouch for anything about it.
posted by soma lkzx at 8:58 PM on April 7, 2006

Response by poster: It's just the money at this point.. and frankly, two months from now, I'll be able to afford any hsoting costs. It's lack of credit card (ugh), and waiting for the paycheques from the new job to come rolling in.

Wow, yellowbkpk, that's very generous of you. Where would I go to have something registered for free, that won't rape me when I pay for registration myself?
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 10:04 PM on April 7, 2006

I'd reccomend nearlyfreespeech.net you can get a yourdomain.nfshost.com for practically free (just pay for bandwidth/storage as you use it can start as low as 25 cents) and they let you set up all kinds of databases/wiki/cms and stuff. When you do get a domain its like 15 the first time and 7 a year after that, you just pay for the bandwidth that you use so its very cheap, no hassle (after you set up the dns to their free one when you buy a domain), and they are pro free speech. I always feel bad reccomending them because it seems like the more people take them up they are going to go out of business. I've tried several cheap/free hosting schemes over the years and these guys are the best.
posted by psychobum at 10:06 PM on April 7, 2006

If it's just the credit card itself that's the problem, Namecheap will accept PayPal. They're $8.88/year. I'm pretty sure you can register just one year at a time. WhoisGuard (to hide your name/address from casual prying eyes) is an extra couple of bucks.

They're just an Enom reseller, but I really like their website and management interface. And you don't have to have a credit card.
posted by Malor at 1:02 AM on April 8, 2006

I was going to suggest namecheap as well and right now they're offering free whoisgaurd for a year.
posted by heartquake at 11:46 AM on April 8, 2006