So the assignment is to imagine that we're building a website for our portfolio. I am not wanting to be a website developer, so this is completely irrelevant to me. But, for the sake of the lab, I will go along with it. For the lab, I have chosen to "purchase" the domain emilygrafelman.com from the NameCheap website and have chosen the Baby Plan from the HostGator website. The Baby Plan features unlimited domains, one click installer and unmetered bandwidth. One click installer, after investigating, looks like it installs tabs for your website for you...which is quite awesome. I also decided to add more features to my website, like HackAlert, which will alert me if my website is hacked (but I doubt it will), Site BackUp featured by CodeGuard (which will back up my code if my website decides to go AWOL), and SSL certification so my future employers know that my website is safe to use and that I care about the safety of future viewers.
I am college student so if I can get things cheap, that's awesome. At the time of researching, HostGator was having some sort of special that gave me a discount. It wasn't much, but if I were a struggling website developer, it would be. The Baby Package was $8.95/mo for 12 months. That's not bad. However, as stated, I decided to make my website more secure by adding different add-ons/features/whatever. I added HackAlert which is $1.67/mo, Site BackUp which is $1.67/mo and SSL Certification which is also $1.67/mo. The grand total for a year, according to HostGator is $208.29. But, as stated, I get a discount, which brings it down to $167.30 a year. This does not include the cost of owning my domain. In order to own the domain emilygrafelman.com, I would have to shell out $10.69 a year. The total per year, including the cost of hosting and owning, comes to a grand total of $177.99..or around $15 a month. However, after one year, the cost of the Baby Package goes up to $11.95/mo. The HackAlert also goes up, varying to around $24.99/year. The BackUp and SSL Certificate go to $19.95/year, each. The cost of domain stays the same. Thus, the price after one year goes up to $218.98/year or around $19 a month.
Overall, the cost of operating a website in the first year is decently priced. However, after the first year is when the websites themselves start increasing their fees. There was around a $4 jump after the first year. This isn't necessarily expensive, but if you're trying to save money and only working a minimum wage job whilst trying to find a better job, it can get expensive. That money could go towards other things, like food or saving up for a vacation. Your best bet is to just save your files on Notepad and showing your future employer that. It's not necessarily more professional, but it's cheaper. Thus, I have deemed this..not necessary.
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