I have something very important to share with you today.  Please, for the best interest of your online business, read this and take it to heart. I know it is long, but it is something you will have to understand if you are going to continue with an online business.

I am sure you have heard it before, but I am going to say it again and then share something that happened to me.

If you plan on operating a business on the internet, you need your own domain.  Plain simple fact!  I don't care what all those affiliate programs try to tell you, you need your own stuff.  Nothing wrong with belonging to those programs, but have your own hosting and domain.  You need to brand your name and earn your reputation on the internet if you plan on being in business very long.  You can not do anything about search engine rankings or build and market to your list without your own domain.

Ok trust me on that one.

Now, the first thing you need is a domain name.  Picking it out can be a bit of a task, so give it careful thought.  Keep in mind that your business will take on many different faces over time.  Avoid the things like incorporated, etc as they have legal ramifications.  After you have picked several possible names out, then you can go online and see if they are available.  You will find many, many, are not.  Of course a dot com is the best, but others exist like .biz, etc…
Next you need to pick out who will be the domain name registrar (and this is were my horror story kicks in).  Prices will vary and some even make it almost impossible for you to ever move it, so watch out for that one too. Service and support are ever so important and often overlooked for the sake of saving a couple dollars a year.  Many domain registrars also will want you to host with them as well.  You are not obliged to do that.

Ok my horror story.
I bought Medieval Hits second hand.  The domain was registered with Go daddy but the exchange was hosted with Glen (the script writer).
About a year later I won (in a referral contest) a years top hosting plan with all the frills from Aurora Internet Services.  Since my hosting was paid up still, I didn't move my site - thank god.  I did however move my domain registration to her when it came up for renewal. (Go Daddy, while sells cheap names, is not noted for their support.)  She gave me 2 yrs free as part of my prize.
All sounds good eh?
No!
A few months later, she went out of business and disappeared.
When my 2 yrs were up on my domain, I received a renewal notice from  - guess who? - Aurora Internet Services, but the email was blank.
So, I went into my notes and tried some of her links and low and behold, the renewal page came up.  Almost all links on the page were dead. I wasn't thinking it wise to pay her and fully expected those links to redirect me to the actual domain registrar (she was a reseller). I tried her phone number listed and that awoke some poor lady in Australia, so that wasn't even her phone number.  No surprise there I guess.
So I decided to send in a support ticket asking her for the transfer code so that I could move my registration to the same people who have Clixelot and my hosting.
No reply - no surprise there either.
A week later I received another renewal notice from her, so I tried the reply to email thing.  No reply to that either, again no surprise.  Didn't bounce, just no reply.
So now what to do?
I did a who is search and discovered that the actual registrar was a company called mind genies aka dotcomgenies, so I sent them an email.  No reply from them either.  Then I went onto their site and submitted a support ticket.  No answer again.
By now over 5 weeks had gone by and I was nearing cancellation date, so I sent them another very nasty, threatening to file complaint with Icann, support ticket.  They finally responded after another week.  They agreed to move it to them from her, all I needed to do was set up an account with them first.  I did that and it took them over a week to move it.  I never even got an email telling me it was moved.  No surprises eh?  I went into my account several times and could not find it anywhere so I sent them another support ticket.  That same day, my domain was shut down.  Think I was pissed?  You bet.  I sent them another ticket asking them to turn it on and what I was supposed to do.  I also expressed my displeasure and asked for the transfer code again.  Again no email, but there was a ticket response simply saying it was moved.  No explanation as to why I couldn't find it and no transfer code again.  I went back in and started clicking links.  Finally found it in one place and low and behold - a renew button!  Seems the only way I was going to get this fixed was to pay them.  I did and sent them another ticket telling them I did, please turn it on.  They replied right away.  Imagine that, got my money, now I get service.  In the reply was instructions on how to get the transfer code too. Imagine that! The reply also said site was propagating across the net and should be accessible soon.  It has been 8 hrs and I still can't access the site.  That may not be their fault, but then again - lol  Guess we'll see in the morning.  The worst part was that their search page displays instead of Medieval and it is a frame breaker, so I had to frantically contact other admins and log in to almost 200 exchanges and pull all those medieval pages. You know how many peoples surfing was affected by their crap?  Scary thought!
I apologize to anyone who experienced that.  That brings up another point for my next email.
How many exchange owners did nothing to stop my pages, letting their members suffer, and on how few exchanges anyone bothered to report my pages.  Sad! It took 2 of us all day to get them all stopped.

So here's the point to all this.
Get your own domain and hosting, but be very careful that price doesn't be the deciding factor.  You are going to need help with your site.

Having said that, I took on a few sites a while back on my own VPS account.  I sell beginner hosting accounts for as little as $2/month to help get you started.  Ask via email at trafficexchangemaster@gmail.com
I have been using Host for Web for over a year now (except for that 1 domain registration) and will say that they give me excellent support.

Sorry this was so long, but it is very important

Do NOT and I repeat Do NOT! use mindgenies aka dotcomgenies
I have never experienced such shotty support.
The 2 yrs for free definitely wasn't worth the time I spend fixing things and the 3 days my site was down.  I paid them, and immediately moved the registration to Host For Web with all my other sites.

I hope this helps you all to not fall into the same trap I did when I began.

Medieval is alive and well again and should not experience any more troubles as I have all my stuff with a very good host and registrar now.

Thank you for being a Citizen of the Medieval Kingdom
You can contact me anytime for assistance or guidance
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Wishing You Success
Larry Phillips
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