As taken from The WordPress MU Manual

The first thing you need to organize before you can install WordPress MU is to purchase a domain name and organize a web hosting services. The easiest option is to purchase both from the same company. For example, Psek specializes in hosting WPMU, sells domain names and provides excellent support.

Choosing Your Hosting Plan

Psek provides the following WPMU hosting plans:

1. Personal – US$7.00/month
2. Business – US$10/month
3. Executive – US$15/month
4. Enterprise – US$20/month
5. Corporate – US$25/month

As a WPMU user you can also request ten times the storage space they offer for no extra charge.

These plans are designed to get you started and, at a Corporate level, are probably going to be fine for over 1000 blogs.

Probably the only limitation that you need to be aware of is that in order to run the WPMU DEV Premium MultiDB plugin you are going to need at least an Executive account to cover the 16 databases you’ll require.

However, should you need to expand pSek (and other hosting companies) offer reseller and dedicated servers that can cater for your needs.

Choosing Your Domain Name

Your domain name is the key to your website. It represents your business brand and is important part of your online identity. Be patient and take the time to choose well.

Here are some tips for choosing domain names:

• Choose a domain name that reflects your business or site.
• Make sure your domain name is unique – you don’t want people confusing your site with another site.
• While a domain name might make sense to you it mightn’t to others. Take the time to discuss with others to ensure it’s easy to remember and they can relate to why you choose the name.
• Where possible make the domain name the same as your site name. A URL that is the same as the site name is much easier for people to remember and find easily.
• Keep in mind people need to be able to remember and easily type your URL into their browser – where possible try to keep your domain name short but meaningful.
• Avoid using hyphens and numbers since they make domain names harder to say and remember.
• Avoid the plural form of a domain name because it is too easy for people to miss typing the ‘s’
• There are many different extensions available like “.com”, “.net”, “.org”, “.info”. Originally “.com” was for commercial business sites, “.org” for organizations and “.net” for networks. However nowadays it can be hard to obtain “.com” names. Make sure that you promote your business or website with the full domain name if you get a domain name with an extension other than “.com” because people often assume a “.com” extension
• It is a good idea to register several similar domain names and redirect the alternatives to your domain name. For example, same name but different extensions such as edutags.org, edutags.net. If your business ends up with high traffic you want to ensure you get benefit for this traffic when people misspell your URL.

Purchasing Your Web Hosting Service and Domain Name

1. Go to Psek and click on Order Now for the hosting plan you want to purchase.
2. Enter the domain name you would like to use and click on Click to Continue

3. Select your domain name and click on Click to Continue

4. Once your payment has been processed you will be sent an email that contains the details you need to log into the Control panel (cPanel). This is where you administer your server account and create the MySQL Database which is required for your WordPress MU.

See Next:
Setting up MySQL Database and User for your WPMU install