Ask HN: How to give a client a website?

Really depends on how hands on you want to be. For my clients, I keep all of their domains under our company GoDaddy account. That allows me to make changes at 2AM if something comes up. It also means that we don't have to get a password from them. We bill them annually for the domain name and ssl, and we host them on our servers.

But, if you are only doing the design and development and then not handling their hosting, i recommend that you let them set up an account on Godaddy and send you the username and password to upload.

> For instance, do you just setup a godaddy account for the client, and then buy the domain and hosting there?

This how I usually see it done. Another option is to create a domain in your own personal account. In that case you have more control, but you also have more responsibility. Sometimes it's good to be done and done.

I recommend against using GoDaddy. Very confusing interface. Check out Dreamhost.

In the past, I've setup Namecheap for them so I could transfer the domain between accounts if needed. If they knew how to setup the php scripts (back when I did php freelancing), I'd send them the related archive of files.

If they wanted me to set it up for them, I'd simply setup the hosting based on their needs and wants which I find to be quicker than putting together the documentation for them to do it themselves and supporting it if something breaks when they configure it.

From over ten years of experience I can tell you that you don't want to be in charge of the domain registration and the hosting. Your customer needs to feel like they own this — otherwise if they don't pay a renewal fee it becomes your fault. The other problem is if you move on to doing something else you can be getting dumb calls for years to come.

By the way I'm assuming that this is a small client by the fact that they haven't already done this....