In the Frequently Given Advice department:
Suppose you register your domain with one company and host your site with the same business. What happens if the company disappears? Even the big ones can fail.
It actually happened with one of the larger registrars a few years ago, leaving many people and businesses severely inconvenienced. Their websites had disappeared, and they could not access the registrar to point their domain to another company.
Some hosting companies offer a free domain with their package. If you’re new to setting up a website, it may seem an attractive option. But for just $10/year (the approximate cost of owning a domain name), it makes more sense to have total control over your domain. After all, it will quickly become an essential asset of your business, carrying with it search engine visibility (“Google juice”), valuable inbound links from other websites, brand awareness and just plain old business goodwill.
If your domain registrar goes down but your website is still standing because it is hosted with a different company, you have time to transfer registration to another registrar. Likewise, If your web host goes down but you can still access your registration, you can find a new web host and point the domain to the new server.
Best practice: register your domain with one company and host your site with another.





Accommodation providers: Do you link out to TripAdvisor from your website?
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A client of mine recently listed her Bed & Breakfast on TripAdvisor.com and was given a snippet of code to put on her website which, when clicked, takes you to her listing on the Trip Advisor site. She was wondering whether she wanted it on her site.
Meanwhile, I was doing research for a trip of my own, and relying heavily on Trip Advisor to select a hotel. I will choose the hotel based on the Trip Advisor comments as much as on the facilities advertised by the hotel.
Trip Advisor has become a big player in the travel accommodations game, and favorable comments are important. So should my client link to it from her website? Continue reading →