My first attempt at a website is slowly being put together (precious little spare time). I'm now at the stage where I need to think about hosting for my site. The thing is I don't really want to spend much money because I won't be able to work on the site as much as I'd like - it's just something to do as a hobby really.

So I know where to get cheap domain names but I don't know much about where to get hosting for the site and domain. I've come across some hosts that offer free hosting with no ads if you post 50 or so posts in their forums. Anyone know what they're like? Or does anyone know the best option for me? It needs to be free or cheap.

Also another option is for me to use a domain name with masked web forwarding to some space I have provided by my ISP. I guess web forwarding isn't that good because you haven't actually got a site with the domain, it's just masking a different one (am I making sense?)

Any help appreciated thanks.

www.ukreg.com provide cheap domains and the "web forwarding" you need

Thanks Jay - those are good prices. I've read that web forwarding is a bit limited in terms of your site not being picked up on search engines etc (because the domain name is just a mask and not the actual site so that titles and tags aren't picked up) - any views on this?

ukreg basically puts your page in a frame under that domain with your meta tags etc. on the page

basically you probably won't get anywhere on search engines using domain forwarding, but your isp webspace address might

Thanks for your advice.

http://www.spiralpages.com offers cheap hosting, as well as free hosting (but its cut down to one account per week).

As for domains, I get mine at http://www.hostway.com