Avoid godaddy.

Register a domain name with namecheap.com and use the WHOIS guard to protect your pesonal information on the public WHOIS entry. Domain registration will be about $10-$12 per year.

For hosting a small website, I'd recommend surpasshosting.com and hostdime.com (they are the same company--just different hosting options). They're inexpensive, reliable, and the support team is excellent.

For hosting, you have a few options. Shared hosting is cheapest ($20-$40/mo). Virtual Private Server (VPS) is $75/mo, which I would recommend if your site gets big enough. Dedicated server hosting is $200+ per month, which I don't recommend unless you have very specific needs.

Hosting companies will not build websites around someone's idea. You are talking about a web application not a site. Pinside is technically an application, as is facebook. A page that has no back end processing would be a site. Something like clays guides would be a good example. I do this for a living and can say that it isn't cheap.

No, you would have to hire someone else to actually build the site if you can't do it yourself.

The registrar is where you would register your domain name (ie, mydomainname.com), and the hosting provider is where your website files are stored.

I would advise that you set up those on your own, so that you actually own them under your name. Sometimes website developers can set those up for you as part of a larger project, but register everything in their name, rather than yours. So if something happens with the business arrangement, they can end up taking those from you. I've seen it happen enough times where it's more common than you would think.

Also, if you do hire someone to build the website, keep in mind they are not a business partner and will not want to "invest" in whatever it is you are doing in exchange for a discount. You are simply paying a contractor to build something for you.

I use Weebly.com for my website. It can register, host and has tools to use for building your site. Very easy to use. I am not sure the cost but it is not expensive. Here is my site:

Www.pinminster.com

Yes godaddy is a route straight to hell. Same for 1and1, network solutions and all that ilk. Don't even ask how I know this.

The scale of what you want to do steers you to what you need. If it is something small you could use Weebly or any of the other dozens of others that are similar. These use templates to build websites. Those can come out ok sometimes. You could even do something in Wordpress for free. The advantage of these is that you can manage to build up a site without having to know all the dirty details of HTML/CSS and such.

The cheapest way to a "real" website is like FF said. Register the domain name at namecheap with privacy. Or, Dynadot is good too that is what I use. Either is good. There are lots of good hosts, the best way to go IMO is via a good recommendation such as from FF. If your site is small you could go for something like asmallorange.com, one of the hosts I use. $8 a month is about as cheap as you can get. 5 gb for storage and 50 gb of bandwidth will handle a small site easily. I have a grandfathered rate for $35 a year. I use that for some basic hobby stuff such as www.xsvtoys.net.

If you don't know how to make the web pages then you have to hire someone for that. That's another whole can of worms.

Try Websitefacelifter

In addition to the above I can recommend arvixe.com for a small non-business Website. I pay $139.20 every two years for my Websites. A new domain costs $9.95. I haven't checked into the latest pricing but they are boasting 'As Low as $7' on their homepage.

I had some problems with their mail server last year, but they have very few outages and are usually very good abut getting their downed servers back online quickly.

Usually you can get a .com domain for a few dollars cheaper for the first year as a promotional rate. It's usually regular price for every year after that.

Really? I used to hate them but in recent years it has gotten much better. Plus they let me export the zone file which makes things easier when I have to copy a site's records for a web replacement of our app. Now 1and1 on the other hand is just trash.

Yes the rates don't vary that much. I would pick a domain name supplier based on reputation, support, ease of use etc versus the price.

Also if you are not doing something business oriented and aren't locked into .com there are tons of other extensions to pick from these days. Some of those can be cheaper.

Of course you still have to go through the whole exercise of getting an available name. If you are working with any sort of regular word or two it can be very difficult to find one that isn't already taken. There are a lot of domain hogs out there that hoard names by the thousands with the hope of selling you the one you want at a higher rate. They are scum.

Lots of people use them and that's ok. I had extremely annoying experiences with them and I will never go back, there are too many alternatives. If everything is going good then you should be ok. The day you decide to switch and pull your domain name (which you own) you might find out what it can be like with them.

People crap all over 1and1 but to be honest I've stuck with them for 15 years and it's been flawless for me. I tried switching a couple times because I let the haters convince me 1and1 was no good... every time I ended up quickly going back to 1and1 because of major issues.

Fyi I use namesilo.com to register my domains.

I also use Amazon web services to host specific content I need to load faster, like videos, downloadable content, etc...

If 1and1 is working good then I agree stick with them. Whenever you try to change things you are sure to get headaches.

Some years ago I inherited a mishmash of sites and domain names scattered on GoDaddy, 1and1, Netsol and some others. It was a constant battle and constant headaches. Life became so much happier once I separated out all of the domain names into a clean account (at Dynadot) and put the hosting onto companies with professional shared hosting servers (asmallorange for hobbies and lunarpages for business). The main problems I had with 1and1, GoDaddy and Netsol were the constant limitations in their host control panel. Once I got to a standardized control panel that had all of the proper functions needed for more advanced things life became so much easier.

Those guys may have improved that over the last few years so maybe it is better now.

At first I thought you were wanting to get your feet wet, so I thought basic go daddy and wix for website building. Then you mention the size of Pinside, which changes everything, Pinside is quite extensive and the amount of time and money Robin spends keeping it going is substantial. I am not a web designer but have some experience with past marketing jobs and hiring work done.....I don't think you could have Pinside designed for less than 15k, that would be a bargain.

Wow you are right I totally missed that, I was thinking for something small. Pinside is not the scale of Amazon to be sure, but I think there are something like 50,000 members here. This is a big database driven site, that will cost some bucks. $15k at least I agree. Probably a lot more. This would be a tough undertaking for someone without experience.
Of course you can hire anything out.

Work with a reputable company. Research them. Ask for references.

LTG : )

My advice is if you can't do it yourself, you're going to end up paying a LOT of money for development -- like multiple tens of thousands of dollars -- before you even go live, with no guarantee that the quality of work will match your vision. It's a tremendous risk. (that's for a social media web app of similar size and scope as Pinside .. although not remotely as polished and fully-featured. A site like this takes YEARS of dedicated development)

I've spent hundreds of hours doing all my own development for iScored. And the thing is, it's a really simple concept. In fact, I had a working prototype done in one mad night of coding when I first got the idea about 4 months ago. But that was just barely the tip of the iceberg. The sheer number of things that had to get done to make it a workable product I was comfortable charging money for just grew and grew ... and grew. And then when I started showing it to people, new things I didn't know I needed became necessities as well. The project wouldn't have been remotely viable if I had been paying someone to do it even at entry-level coding wages. (and do you really want entry-level work anyway if you're spending all that money?)

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there's a team out there that will implement exactly what you want for a good price. And if so, I hope you find them. Cheers and good luck.

If you offered me 15k cash to code a website like pinside I'd turn it down instantly. The sites I have developed have far more than 15k in development costs when adding up my time and experience. Probably 4x that or more, hard to really say.

Certainly think Pinside is a hobby....labor of love. Hiring a concept done will certainly cost a lot! depending how extensive

Pinside is probably the best /well developed forum site I have ever seen . If I were to develop a website, I would like it similar to this system.