Should you buy domain and hosting together? Should I buy a domain name from my web hosting company? These are questions that popped quite often when deciding to create a site online. Many ask themselves this especially when searching for the right web hosting provider.
In today’s review, we will answer should you register a domain name with my web hosting company or not. We will cover some reasons beginners might prefer to buy them together and also highlight reasons to separate them. I have purchased over 30 domain names to date and have used several hosting services so I know a thing or 2 about what’s best!
No matter the website, blog or eCommerce store that you would like to build online, there are essentially 3 things that you will need to achieve it. First you need to get a domain name, a web hosting service, and a CMS like WordPress. I will explain what each is in layman’s terms and also make suggestions of where to get them.
Ready? Let’s dive in!
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What Is A Domain Name?
Whether this will be your first time or not, buying a domain name is a really simple process. A domain name is simply the name of your website. For example, the name of this website that you have visited today is https://bestwebhostingforwordpress.net.
You will notice that it is a long tail keyword that describes something very specific that users are searching for actively online. Including keywords in domain names is one of many search ranking factors which is something to consider for your site.
I want you to think of your domain name as the address of your house or apartment. When a person enters your address in their GPS, it takes them to the exact location. When someone types your domain name in their browser, a computer server will basically redirect them to the website.
Before you learn how to buy a domain name online, you need to think FIRST about your brand. Consider also something that you want people to always remember when hearing your website name. This will help you to think about a simple short domain name that is easy to remember.
Although you can use numbers or hyphens in domain names according to Google, it can look very spammy are hard for people to remember. As a recommendation I would not use them at all to keep things simple and easy for your visitor’s readability.
Now, just like you buy a house through a real estate agent, you must buy a domain name for your website using a domain name register. Although there are literally thousands of them globally, the best domain registrar that I have found online is Namecheap. Their pricing across the board for domains and web hosting are the cheapest for beginners wanting to create sites online. Also, they give clients Free Whois privacy protection which protects your information online.
Domain names came be purchased as .com, .net, .org, .info, .edu, .gov, .me, .blog, .biz, .money, etc. These are mere examples of literally hundreds of TLD extensions that you can select from with a domain name registrar. Typically domain names at Namecheap run about $6/year, however sometimes I see different deals on other extensions where beginners can save even more on costs.
What Is Web Hosting Service?
Earlier I drew a quick comparison of how your domain is like the physical address where your apartment or home is located. However, what is web hosting? In short, it would be the actual property. Some houses are smaller while others are bigger. Depending on the size of your home or apartment will determine how much you can store inside.
To get online you will be basically renting space from a server owned by a web host. This server will run 24/7/365 and will store all of your content, files, databases and images on your website. It will server your website to your visitors anytime they enter your domain name into their browser.
Now as for web hosting for WordPress, there are many to choose from. Some are cheap shared web hosting for beginners and others are fully Managed hosting providers.
Some popular shared hosting providers are Accuwebhosting, A2 Hosting, Siteground, Hostwinds, and Bluehost. An awesome fully Managed WordPress hosting provider that is great to use is Liquid Web.
For beginners creating their very first site though, I highly recommend using Hostpapa web hosting. They are Canadian based web hosting provider with 102 server locations in 50 countries. They have over 500,000 customers globally and provide all of the tools and resources that entrepreneurs need to build websites online. So it really doesn’t matter where you live in the world, you can build a site today using Hostpapa.
Should You Buy Domain and Hosting Together?
Now that know and understand how domain names and web hosting work, the big question is…should you buy domain and hosting together? Should I register a domain name with my web hosting company? Yes and No. There is no simple answer to this so what we will do is talk about both the benefits and disadvantages of doing it.
Benefits of buying together:
- You can often get a FREE domain name your 1st year with most providers
- Easy to manage everything under 1 umbrella
- It’s easy to renew or upgrade plans and resources
- It’s super convenient at checkout and no need to point nameservers.
- Web hosting provider will configure everything with your account setup so you don’t have to worry about it.
- As long as you pay for your web hosting & domain according to term, you should be okay.
Disadvantages of buying together:
- Domain might be FREE 1st year, but may be more expensive through the web hosting the following year when renewing. Of course this will depend on the top level domain extension that you selected initially [ex. com, .net, .org, etc]
- If you have problems with your web hosting company, issues with billing, then you could lose your domain name. If this happens, then you will need to buy another domain for your brand online.
- If they are separate, then you can leave anytime you want because you own the domain. Most web hosting competitors offer FREE site migrations and will move your site for you without any problem.
- If the web hosting service experiences security issues, cyber attacks or is hacked, then you could lose your domain & website data all together. Hackers can take over your domain and change settings. If this happens, then your website is taken over. If they are separate, then you can easily start back over or restore it with a website backup. It may never happen, but this really breaks down to a possible security issue.
These are just some of the major points that come to mind when people ask me should you buy domain and hosting together or separately. At the end of the day it will depend largely on your personal goals. If you just want to create 1 website online, then it might not be such a big deal initially when offered a FREE domain on your 1st year. It’s great way to save a few bucks.
If you experience problems with your web hosting provider, then you can do a domain transfer or migrate the entire website to another provider. I recommend that if you want to create multiple websites online for things like affiliate marketing, home-based businesses, etc then you should buy your domain and web hosting separately.
If you are building a website that you plan to sell later to someone else for profit (ex. domaining or website flipping), then it probably would be practical to register a domain name with your web hosting together.
Again, it’s all about your ultimate goal at the end of the day. However, generally I try to keep them separate for most things.
How To Purchase Domain Name and Web Hosting Together
If you decide to buy a domain name and web hosting together, then the process will be a lot easier if you know what to do.
As for domains, I used to buy them years ago from Godaddy, but I stopped due to the increased costs and bad customer support. However, a really great place for beginners to buy domain and web hosting together is Hostpapa.
You will get a FREE domain today when you setup your account along with tons of features and resources. Whether you need to create just 1 site or several, they have really nice packages for all tastes with great savings for beginners online.
As you will see below, there are 3 simple hosting plan to choose from: Starter, Business and Business Pro. Although I love the Business hosting plan for creating sites, I think the Starter plan is perfect for beginners online. Think about which hosting plan is best for your needs and make a selection.
Next, you will select a domain name for your Hostpapa account. Remember that you get a FREE domain for your first year. You will key it in to see if it’s available to reserve for your brand online.
The next step will be to plug in your billing info for your account and then you are finished with setting up Hostpapa account.
Thereafter, you should see a screen that looks like this. You will receive some emails from Hostpapa as a confirmation of your order and also get nameserver info.
But if you decide that you should buy domain and hosting separate, then you will just have to remember to point your domain to the Hostpapa nameservers. If you need help or have questions regarding how to do this, feel to drop a comment below or contact us.
It really doesn’t matter the place that you buy your domain from, the process works pretty much the same with adding nameservers. But again, for convenience sake if you want to have everything under 1 roof or umbrella, then get started right now with Hostpapa. You can even use a simple CMS platform like WordPress to build your site as it doesn’t require experience with html or coding.
Conclusion: Should I Buy A Domain Name From My Web Hosting Company?
What do you think at this point? Yes or No? Again, this will depend largely on your personal goals online. Do you need to create 1 site or several? As a beginner you may have never considered these points before regarding website security. It’s something that unfortunately we all have to think about in the times that we live in.
Websites are bombarded with malware, ransonware, hackers, DDoS & brute attacks everyday per stats. Depending on the high security measures that your web hosting provider has in place will depend if you ever experience any issues or not. In many cases you may not experience issues at all, but it’s still good to know about the possibilities and how this could affect your domain name.
If you buy domain and hosting together, then you should just make sure that your web hosting provider is reputable and reliable. Although there are many web hosting providers online to build sites with, today I given you one suggestion that’s has great security measures in place.
Hostpapa provides you SSL certificates, advanced content delivery networks, automatic website backups, proactive monitoring and more to protect your websites. These are things that ever website owner should have and you get it all with them when you get started today.
Should you buy domain and hosting together or not? What do you personally think is best? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. I hope you much success online with your business this year going forward. Stay safe during COVID 🙂