Why shouldn't I buy domain names from my hosting company?

Basically, if you decide to move host, they can held your domain hostage ... for sometimes before they're letting you off ... Try hosting at Web Hosting, Reseller Hosting, and Dedicated Website Hosting w/ cPanel - HostGator

Thank you, Mint Tree. I always thought that you could move your domain names to another company, so long as you paid the "admin fee"... :rolleyes:

It's a bad idea to give away control over your domain name. This is exactly what you are doing when you register a domain name with your host.

This is why many suggest Namecheap.com - Cheap domain name registration, renewal and transfers - Free SSL Certificates - Web Hosting - Free URL Forwarding, e-mail forwarding and DNS services are included with our cheap domain names registration service for domain names and then Web Hosting, Reseller Hosting, and Dedicated Website Hosting w/ cPanel - HostGator for hosting.

Some host that offer a free domain name if you host with them do this hoping to get your business. What they do not tell you is the domain name will be registered in their name and not yours. Thus the hosting company owns the domain name, if it becomes valuable they can very well sell it and nothing you can do about it.

James

Wow, I have never heard anything like this, are there hosting companies that don't do this?

Someone mentioned hostgator up there.

I use Hostmonster, and from everything they show you it sure seems like the domain is registered to me?

Is there some place that tells which hosts do this and which do not?

Like Charles said, GoDaddy is one of the worst with this. I never had a problem with them, but I only 1 website with them for about 2 months. When I found out about this problem I moved it.

I started my first website a couple of years ago with SiteSell. I thought their product was great when I first started trying to build a site. It was a little expensive, but it was a hosting package, plus training, plus their website building software all for one price.

I decided to stop using them, and did not renew after my first year. Then it took months (because I had no clue) to figure out how to get my site back.

I am moving my domain names away from GoDaddy because of this and already switched my hosting from them to HostGator.

It's really very simple. Provide potential problems and lose your customers.

always make sure you have your domain registered under your name and always have a local copy of your website, this is the key to success. What I personally do is buy my domains from a well known registrar and bought unlimited domains/space package with hostmonster. I have like 150 sites hosted in one package from something like less than $90 a year. I keep registration and hosting separate and a local copy as mentioned.

All the best.

Rajeev

One other very important thing John. When you go to point your servers to your new host, you need to keep the servers listed with the current host for at least one day.

The reason is when point your site to a new host, it takes up to about 24 hours for the new servers to get you site listed. So if you put your new servers in and delete the old servers right away, no one will be able to see your site for several hours.

If you wait for about 1 day after putting your new servers in, you can go back and take the old ones out, then cancel the old hosting account. Before canceling check to see if the site is showing up on the new servers or you will have the same problem.

Thanks for that, Michael. By "servers" I'm assuming you mean the name servers, which would mean that "host" is where the HTML lives.

Anyone think that I should move my domain names away from UK2.net to a "names only" company, now that I know that I'm recorded as the name registrar?

Hi John,

The first domains I ever bought were with Magic-Moments and Webfusion. I also hosted my sites there.

The problem was they were crap and the sites often went down and it was a hassle. They were bought up by other companies, about 4 times in 10 years and each time there were new tech support people and everything became even more of a hassle.

It felt like I didn't have control. I didn't actually have access to the domain names and I was always worried in case they didn't renew them each year etc. Also they charged me about 3 times what other domain name registrars charged.

Anyway, once I learned a bit more, I decided to move the domains over to another domain registrar. Now I use ukreg and 123-reg to buy my domains.

Moving is quite straight forward, you just make sure you follow the instructions and make sure you put in the correct name servers at your new domain registrar.

I have full access to choose whatever nameservers I want the domains to point at. Prices are much cheaper and I feel in control.

If my host's performance becomes crap enough, I set up a package somewhere else (usually UnitedHosting) and just change the name servers once everything is tested properly.

So basically I strongly advise anyone to keep separate control of their domain names away from the hosting company that you use.

I hope this helps.

Thank you for this advice. It's too late for me, but next time I buy domains I will keep this in mind.

Speaking from experience, when I setup my first site many moons ago I registered my domain name through my web host it seemed logical - big mistake. When I later tried to switch hosts I had all kinds of trouble getting the domain unlocked. Now I always buy my hosting and domains with 2 separate companies. It gives you much more control.

Well, once I got to the control panel of my domain/hosting company's website, I realised that I've remembered my password but forgotten my username.

I'll have to ask for my password to be re-sent and hope that I'll also be re-united with my user name.

Failing that, I'll just sit here and punch myself in the face... :rolleyes:

I learned this the hard way. From now on, I am going to keep my domains at Namecheap because they are very easy to use and to transfer domains.

When I started, I bought both my domain names and hosting from dreamhost. Now I use hostgator for hosting, but I still have some domain names and hosting at dreamhost.

I recently asked dreamhost what would happen if I cancel my hosting with them, how would I change the DNS on my domain names? They told me that if I did not have hosting with dreamhost, I could not change the DNS on the domain names.

So I am going to move all my domains elsewhere as soon as I can.

I am also a new to the market place and this is a great question I am going to check it out thanks.

I would go even further to say that you should buy domains directly from ICANN-Accredited Registrars rather than resellers. Because if the reseller does not pay the real Registrar, than you could be in deep trouble. This is what happened with Registerfly a few years back. For this reason, I was a bit concerned about NameCheap at first because they were reselling eNom, but now they are a real Registrar.

It's not recommended because they will hold your domain "hostage"
in case you wanted to shift it into another hosting company.
This is not always, but it is happening in many cases.