Losing your database and domain name.

8 replies
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I am launching a dating site

I have heard of peoples hosting account being deleted and as a result they lost their domain name to the hosting service and they have lost their database. For a dating site my database is my whole business.

Note: I am using wordpress + buddypress and then I will be customizing a theme I bought from themeforest.

So here are my questions:

1. How can I keep from losing my domain to my hosting service? Can I back up my domain name that. I purchased my domain name with godaddy but my site and my domain name is hosted on hostgator.

2. What is the importance of whois when protecting your domain. I read about it but im still confused.

3. How to and should I back up my domain name, wordpress site and database on an external hard drive.

Thanks for in help.
#database #domain #losing
  • Profile picture of the author RobinInTexas
    Originally Posted by Arobi030 View Post

    I am launching a dating site

    I have heard of peoples hosting account being deleted and as a result they lost their domain name to the hosting service and they have lost their database. For a dating site my database is my whole business.

    Note: I am using wordpress + buddypress and then I will be customizing a theme I bought from themeforest.

    So here are my questions:

    1. How can I keep from losing my domain to my hosting service? Can I back up my domain name that. I purchased my domain name with godaddy but my site and my domain name is hosted on hostgator.

    2. What is the importance of whois when protecting your domain. I read about it but im still confused.

    3. How to and should I back up my domain name, wordpress site and database on an external hard drive.

    Thanks for in help.
    If your domain is registered at godaddy, hostgator has no ability to take your domain name.

    Whois has nothing to do with protecting your domain.

    There are several FREE plugins that will allow you to back up your entire site on your local hard drive.

    WordPress › XCloner - Backup and Restore « WordPress Plugins

    or

    WordPress › Duplicator « WordPress Plugins
    Signature

    Robin



    ...Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just set there.
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    • Profile picture of the author Arobi030
      thanks for the help.
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  • Profile picture of the author RenardNET
    1. You have domain registered by different company than hosting - this is good, always is better to not put all your eggs into one basket. You just have to be sure that you pay domain bills on time so domain will not expire. Hosting service will not grab your domain.

    2. Hiding your personality in WhoIs can be important only if your domain has brand included in name - to protect domain from taking it by brand owner. So if you don't have any brand or trademark included in name than you are fine.

    3. There is no way to backup domain. For backup WP and database use WP plugins which will authomaticaly do it for you and send backup to email or cloud services like Dropbox, Amazon S3 etc. I am using this plugin for my blogs:
    WordPress › BackWPup « WordPress Plugins

    Tom
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    • Profile picture of the author RobinInTexas
      Originally Posted by RenardNET View Post

      2. Hiding your personality in WhoIs can be important only if your domain has brand included in name - to protect domain from taking it by brand owner. So if you don't have any brand or trademark included in name than you are fine.
      There is absolutely NOTHING you can do to stop a company that owns a brand/trademark from taking it.

      Private whois will not protect you from anything except casual snoopers and spammers.
      Signature

      Robin



      ...Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just set there.
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      • Profile picture of the author Arobi030
        thanks for all your help. I always learn something new every time I ask a question.
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        • Profile picture of the author bigbrian76
          Word of advice....

          Don't use WordPress and BuddyPress to do your dating site. I have a social network on BP, and hackers are a nightmare. Even with high security, they still get into it.

          I would highly recommend you check out Etano, at Datemill.com - Community builder, social networking script, dating script. It's totally open source and has most of your bells and whistles already built in. And there's add-ons to make it more powerful as well. Most are free, but there's a few paid ones out there.

          If you'd like some help, shoot me a PM or add me on Skype. I'd be happy to show you the site I built and one another person has made too. I think you'll have less headaches here.

          P.S. I concur with keeping your domain in one place and hosting separately. B/C even if you happen to forget to renew your domain and you go dark, you can still access your files by IP address. But definitely use backup tools for WordPress. I personally recommend WP Twin - yes its pricey, but I've always been able to use this script to build and clone sites, as well as take backups with ease.
          Signature

          Brian Schilling

          Zero BS Marketing

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  • Profile picture of the author HomeBizNizz
    Just remember to pay your bills, follow the rules set by your webhost and you will be fine. You should back up your database once a day. But that you can do that with a external PHP-script and the webhost's cron.
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  • Profile picture of the author AFineWebDesign
    For domain names just make sure you setup auto-renew on a CC that you know will always be well under its limit.

    I have a dedicated card for all my hosting and domain names set to auto-renew. There is probably nothing worse than having your domain name expire, just makes you look really bad. =)

    P.S. - BuddyPress and Wordpress together seems like it would be a great idea but in reality you just have a gigantic target on your website for spammers and hackers. I run a BP/WP site and it can be done safely but I recommend using Better WP Security - http://wordpress.org/plugins/better-wp-security/ (It's Free and better than 90% of paid plugins) if you run this plugin and do ALL the fixes possible to a blank WP install (even before you install BP, but after you set up permalinks) then you can get away with using BP and you will get minimal hackers and spammers because the main reason anything happens to you on WP is because people scan for files in the wp-content folder in your WP install (which is where all the plugins and themes are located), this plugin allows you to change the name of the wp-content folder, thereby hiding your install of BP (which has security problems) from people randomly scanning all BP installs.

    Hope this info helps people better protect their WP installs (for FREE)
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