What is the different between going with a free provider and IMEX?

It is essential that you host your site with a professional hosting company such as IMEX. By paying for services, you assure that your site remains available; that the server is maintained and upgraded when necessary. This is the only way to be independent and have complete control over the entire website. One pitfall for people trying to save money by using domain redirection is the lack of reliability. Domain redirection is when a site is hosted on a 3rd party server (such as Geocities) for free, and the domain is registered with a company that links the domain to the site hosted on the 3rd party server. This hides the real name of the site to lead people to believe it is hosted on a private server; however it can lead to unpleasant surprises with technical problems for which there is no source of support. It can effect the operation of email, complicate DNS resolution, and lead to issues with successfully indexing a website with search engines.

What does web hosting and websites have to do with each other?

Web hosting is required in order for websites to be put "live" on the Internet. Web hosting allows the website to exist on the World Wide Web. A computer that specializes in hosting stores the website so it can be accessed by any internet user during any time of the day. IMEX hosting is examples of a great web hosting company that will make sure your website remain accessible with 99% reliability and impressive throughput speed. Why go to other hosting companies who continuously have technical issues and slow to a crawl during peak hours of the day? IMEX is the perfect solution for painless hosting.

What is a Domain Name?

A domain name is an address on the Internet. It is the name people will remember when they want to go to your site. Like an address of someone's physical home, a domain name allows you to easily visit his or her location on the Internet. The best domain names to select are those that are easy to memorize, simple, and great sounding. Great domain names help contribute to increased site visitors and return rates of visitors.

Would it be wise to purchase second-level domains?

Once you purchase a website, it is recommended that you purchase a second-level domain name without anything in front and behind it (with the exception of www.). This will become your permanent address on the Internet. If you don't like the way your page is hosted, you can always move them to another host at any time and the page addresses will remain the same. Thus, nothing will be different for your site visitors. Likewise, if you don't like how the domain registrar maintains the domain name for you, you can transfer the name to another registrar and nothing will change. Just remember that the domain remains your property as long as you pay the fee for the name to the registrar. Purchasing your domain along with your hosting from IMEX simplifies this process. You are not fully dependent on the company that provided you with the domain. If something happens to the domain registrar, you will lose all of your visitors and popularity because your pages will have the web address linking to a server that is no longer in existence. You would also have difficulty changing the DNS.