This is the least interesting part of having a website and the part where the most goes wrong. Not because it is difficult, but because it is usually handled by somebody else and then forgotten until something breaks.
The ownership question, before anything else
The single most important thing on this page: the domain must be registered in your name, on an account you control.
It is common for an agency or a cousin who "knows computers" to register it on their own account as a favour. It works fine until you want to change agency, or they stop replying, or a renewal is missed. Then you discover the address your customers know, your email and your search rankings belong to somebody else.
Check today. Log in to the registrar yourself. If you cannot, that is the thing to fix this week — before the site, before SEO, before anything.
.com or .com.bd
Both are legitimate; they say different things.
- .com is what people assume and type by default. Cheap, instant, renews anywhere. If you might ever sell outside Bangladesh, take it.
- .com.bd signals a local business clearly and can help slightly with local search. Registration is slower and involves paperwork through BTCL, and it is harder to move.
Many businesses take both and point one at the other. That is a reasonable, inexpensive answer — just make sure the redirect goes one way permanently, rather than both versions serving the same site, which splits your search signals.
Hosting: the parts that actually matter
Ignore the feature lists. Four things decide whether hosting is adequate:
- Can it handle your busiest day, not your average one. A campaign or a festival spike is when it matters and when cheap shared hosting fails.
- Backups you can restore yourself, daily, kept for a meaningful period. "We have backups" is not the same as "you can restore last Tuesday at 3pm without emailing anyone".
- SSL included and renewing automatically. Free certificates are standard now. Paying separately for basic SSL is a sign of an outdated provider.
- Support that answers. Test it before you commit: send a question at 10pm and see what happens.
Does the server need to be in Bangladesh?
Less than people think. A server in Singapore with a CDN in front of it will usually feel faster to a Dhaka visitor than a poorly configured local box, because a CDN serves most of the page from a nearby edge regardless of where the origin sits.
Local hosting genuinely helps when you need local support in Bangla, local billing, or you have a regulatory reason to keep data in-country. Otherwise, judge on the four points above rather than the flag on the datacentre.
What "unlimited" means
Unlimited bandwidth and unlimited storage are marketing, governed by a fair-use clause further down the page. It is not dishonest exactly, but it is not a specification either. A plan with honest numbers you can check is worth more than one with impressive words you cannot.
A short checklist
- Domain registered in your business name, on your own account.
- Auto-renew switched on, and a card that will still be valid next year.
- Registrar login stored somewhere your business will still have access to if one person leaves.
- Hosting with daily backups you have restored at least once, as a test.
- SSL valid and auto-renewing.
- Somebody's name against "who applies the updates".
That last one is where most small business sites eventually fail — see website maintenance for what that actually involves.
If you are not sure what you currently own or who controls it, send us your domain and we will tell you what is registered, where it is hosted and what is exposed. That costs nothing and occasionally prevents something expensive.