semi new to hosting basic question

[iansane]

Hi,

I have a little basic experience from a site previously hosted on Host Gator and while I had administrative access I really wasn't in charge so I was afraid to play around with things too much. I also have experience with linux servers.

I would like to start out with my own domain and a shared business account, learn a lot and then when I have a couple of customers and am ready as far as knowlege I want to upgrade to a reseller account. The owner of the previous site I mentioned did this. Is there any reason I'm not aware of that I wouldn't want to go this route to get started?

My question is, if I want to use things in Fantastico and I direct the domain to a 404 or "site under construction" page while setting it up and testing things out, will this garantee that no one will accidentally stumble on my page? I don't want to start out with a bad reputation by having things publicly accessible before they are ready. As far as my own sites and web apps I can develope them at home before uploading them but am wondering about the Fantastico add ons. Actually I'd like the whole site to stay off line until I'm ready and don't want google pointing people to it until that time.

Thanks

PS. I love the gator smilies.

[gwyneth]

There are a variety of ways to take a site offline, and when you get to that point, start a thread in the shared hosting category to get help with your specific situation.

[iansane]

Ok gweneth. Thank you. I will do that.