Did you know domains and hosting are different? And they can each be hosted through different providers?
Yeah, this can confuse a lot of people.
So I thought I’d take some time and go over what all this means, best practices, and what you need to know when you are setting things up for you and your business.
Think of your domain like your address. It’s the user friendly address web visitors will use to visit your website.
Your domain host is the phone book that keeps track of that domain and makes sure you are the only one who uses it.
Your website host is like the land itself. It is the little piece of the internet where you build your site and keep it for the world to visit.
So, if your website hosting is your land, your domain is the numbers painted on your mailbox so people can find you.
These serve two separate but distinct functions. Both equally important and necessary to having a website available for people to visit.
Now that you understand what each of these things are, let’s talk about where to keep them. Or where to buy them from.
I often get asked if it matters if people have their domains and hosting at the same place, GoDaddy for instance.
It’s probably the number one question I get from people who are getting ready to build a website and are doing the preliminary leg work.
I, along with most web developers, recommend hosting your website and your domains with different providers.
There are several reasons for this. And these certainly outweigh the usual reason against it, which is consolidating accounts and platforms.
So, what are these mysterious reasons to keep your domains and hosting separate?
Well, the first one is for ease. Domains are usually set up once and not touched again until renewal time, and that just involves paying the bill. If you change hosting you will need to jump in and make a quick change on your domain nameservers, but that seriously takes about 5 minutes and you’re done.
All domain hosting services (otherwise known as domain registrars) pretty much offer the same thing. There may be bonuses thrown in, but there’s not really a difference in quality of domain hosting. It is what it is. It’s numbers painted on a mailbox.
It’s a harmless process that you can truly set and forget.
Your website hosting is a little different, and who you choose does matter. And you may change your mind over the course of the life of your business.
Hosting providers are different and do have a lot of different things to consider. There are bandwidth questions, managed vs unmanaged hosting, email options, visitor limits and more.
So choosing your hosting provider can be a complex decision if you want it to be. 🙂
Regardless of who you choose, there is one thing that you can run into with hosting providers that you are not likely to run into with domain registrars.
Due to the nature of your relationship with your hosting provider you may find you grow unhappy with them. Perhaps their support is subpar, or you outgrow them, or they change their offerings.
Whatever the case, the chances of you wanting to move your hosting are certainly higher than the chances of you wanting to change your domain registrar.
And if you keep your hosting and domain separate, any change like this is made a little bit easier.
It’s just a matter of moving your site files, changing your nameservers, and continuing about your business. You can actually get this done with zero downtime for your site and zero impact on user experience.
Pretty cool, right?
Here’s another reason to keep your domains and hosting with different companies.
If your account gets hacked, your entire online presence is in jeopardy.
Literally.
Let me explain.
If your account at your provider gets hacked, and your domains and hosting are housed with the same company both your domains and your site could be at risk.
Not only could hackers install malware on your site, they could reroute, even transfer your domain to their registrar.
You could lose your site and domain all in one successful hack.
Scary, right?
So this is where my risk management side comes out and I reflect on my days owning an insurance agency.
If you run an online business, and that is where your revenue comes from, then you need to do whatever you can to protect yourself from losing that revenue stream.
So it’s a simple diversification of assets.
Except in this case the assets are your website and your domain.
Basically, you don’t want someone to be able to damage your land and steal your mailbox all at the same time. They can have one…but they can’t have both!
If you have any questions about websites, hosting or any of the technical stuff feel free to book a no obligation 15 minute strategy session with me and I’m happy to answer any questions or clear any of this up.
Because the safety of your business is something that can’t be at risk.
