Is It Better To Register Domains With A Hosting Provider Or A Seperate Domain Registration Company?

Hi Steve,

I heard the same thing, that if in the future there was a problem with your hosting, you can easily swap hosts. If you have your domains registered with your host then they might make things difficult for you when you try to change, and I did hear of this happening to someone ..

So I keep my domains registered at godaddy or namecheap, and all my hosting with hostgator.

I am not sure about the second part of the question, I expect a technically clever person will soon answer this one for you!

hope this helps
chickenlittle

1) chickenlittle is right. Keep your domain registration separate from your hosting. Two different businesses, like buying a car and buying gasoline. They may seem related but you would not want to tie yourself in with a single supplier for both.
2) 123-reg is a very poor registrar IMHO. I stand to be corrected but I believe they are one of the few remaining that actually charges you for DNS control. Move to someone else, like godaddy or namecheap.

You do not need a redirect like 123-reg are making you do. This is how the system works:

Every ISP (Internet Service Provider) in the world has DNS (domain name services) servers. Often just called name servers, these servers are queried by your mail client or your browser and are needed to find out the IP (Internet Protocol) address of a given domain. For example, when you want to browse www.bbc.com your browser will ask its name server for the address and the name server will reply 212.58.251.195 because that is the IP address of their web site.

Every domain has an authority name server. If your ISP's name server which is being queried by your browser does not know the authority name server for your domain, it will query one of about 30 odd root servers, asking "who is the authority name server for Stephen's web site" and the root server will say "123-reg". Then the name server will query 123-reg who will tell it the IP address of your web site and send this address back to your browser.

Are you still with me? It's not that complicated really. What I want you to understand is that as the owner of your domain you have the authority to change the DNS entry. You can tell whomever is the registrar of your domain to put whatever you want in the DNS entry. Your registrar should have a simple web interface. If your hosting provider's name servers are ns1.bluehost.com and ns2.bluehost.com all you need to do is log into your control panel at 123-reg (if they let you) and change the DNS servers for your domain to ns1.bluehost.com and ns2.bluehost.com, period! It then takes up to 48 hours for this information to propogate around the world to all the DNS servers.

When you change hosting providers you go back to your registrar, log in and change ns1.bluehost.com and ns2.bluehost.com to point at your new hosting provider. You don't even need to tell your old hosting provider you have done this until you close your account with them.

So... if 123-reg are not cooperative, change registrars. Go to godaddy or any other modern one with total dns control. Your life will be so much simpler and you'll be glad you did.

and while you're at it, if I can recommend, get a decent DNS hosting company. DNS management will save you a lot of time. If you have many domain, I suggest you assign one domain to your name servers, so that you don't have to use your ISPs nameservers or host providers nameservers (use your own). Look for DNS hosting providers with Vanity Nameserver options.

The cheapest one that I have found, and very reliable is Nettica.com - there are others as well, but when you run into 1000s of domains then it can be costly.

I use namecheap and godaddy. Dont use them for hosting. Use hostgator or someone similar

Even for domain name registration I used three different registrars. Just in case something happen to one of them, it will not affect me badly.

Never concentrated your business with one provider. Diversification is the name of the game if you want to avoid problem later on.

Definately keep them seperate in my opinion.

Remember to check with company you register with that they allow for the "A Record" to be updated. I have been caught out a couple of times and been charged extra to update the A record to point at another host. Most companies, however, will have this feature free in the control panel. I register my .com with namecheap and my .co.uk with 1 & 1.

read that point made by Richard above - have several registrars for protection.

(Same for servers)

I use GoDaddy for my domains for the most part and to have them seperate from hosting companies etc has proven beneficial to me given that I once got a dedicated server shut down without notice simply because they did not agree with wealth creation as a niche so as you could imagine I was very greatful to have my domains elsewhere :-)

Just like everyone else, my suggestion is to keep them separate. The last thing you want is your host holding your domain name hostage or making you jump through hoops to get control over your domain name(s).

I use Enom for registering domains and have never had a problem. Cheap, simple, they "just work."

Always keep your hosting and domain registrations separate. If for no other reason, so you are 100% sure that your domain name really is your domain name. Some hosts will register a domain name for you, but you are only leasing its use from them -- the host still technically owns the domain name. This is a fine practice in itself, but if it's not what you're wanting to do, you're going to be pretty irritated when you discover "your" domain name isn't really yours.

If you want exclusive control of a domain name, register it at a domain registrar.

Hello Stephen,

I have heard several stories of GoDaddy shutting down domain use and their hosting for receiving one complaint of spamming. This may have been an exaggeration, but it has been repeated by a few.

It is better to separate your domains and hosting.

Then as you grow with additional websites, get a second hosting account, a second home for some of your domaains and always have a copy of all of your websites on your hard-drive.

This is just insurance policies, once you purchase the insurance, you will never use it.
All the Best

I'd also recommend using namecheap.com for domain registration, and hostgator for hosting. I've used both of them, and am very pleased with their services.

See NoDaddy.Com - Exposing the Many Reasons Not to Trust GoDaddy with Your Domain Names for some good reasons not to use go daddy to register domain names. Even if they are the cheapest.

Also, be aware of any offers of "Free" domain name registration if you purchase web hosting. In many cases, the hosting provider puts themselves as the registrant (owner) of the domain name, and you are very likely to have problems if you want to move to another web host.
Cheers, Eric G.

The eggs in one basket springs to mind.

Instead of having everything together have your domain seperately then if something goes wrong you can transfer things over quickly without any major effort. I have my domains at godaddy yet my hosting is provided by hostgator and it works really well.

kind regards

sam
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