How to register a domain and get web hosting
Want to impress employers with your own resume page?
First you need to register a domain name (URL) and hire someone to host your site.
Buying a URL is also called “registering a domain.” You might want to purchase “yourbyline.com” or “yourfullname.com”. Maybe both. Domains can cost anywhere from 8$ a year to 15$.
Use the GoDaddy bar at the top right to check a domain’s availability. If your name’s been bought already, try it with a hyphen between the first and last names or some other variant.
Once you’ve got a domain purchased, you need to set up a hosting plan. You should use the same company for both of these tasks. Hosting companies have “servers,” which are computers plugged into the internet at all times. People like us pay these companies for space on these computers, where we can put the files that comprise our sites.
A good host is someone whose servers don’t crash, with good customer support, good prices, and good features. Gate.com charges $10 per month. Yahoo charges around 8$, AN Hosting and Blue Hosting both start at $7 a month. For basic resume web sites, you won’t need anything more than the cheapest hosting plans offered by these companies.
Recommended registrars/hosts
Scope a few out and pick. They’re all reputable:
So what about copyright and security? I have some pics and video that I want to put up without people nabbing them for their own sites. Are there any issues with me republishing stuff I’ve written for other papers?
For pictures, I recommend opening them up in Photoshop and adding your name and URL as a watermark across them. This will deter most image thieves. As for video, well it depends on how you host it. If you put in in YouTube, anyone can embed it anywhere they like. You could always password protect a specific page and give employers the password, but that might be more trouble than its worth.