Domain Name vs Web Hosting: What You Are Paying For and Who Should Hold What

People often buy a domain name and a hosting plan as if they were one thing. They are two separate products, and knowing which is which makes it easier to compare offers and to avoid being locked in.

This guide is based on the public sources listed at the end. We have not tested the products or services mentioned.

This is a short reference page. The full guide is Web Hosting and Domains: The Complete Guide.

Two products, one website

• The domain name is the address people type, such as example.com. Registering it does not create a website.
• Hosting means storing a site's files on a computer that stays connected to the internet. The web server software on it answers each request from a visitor's browser: it looks for the matching file and sends it back, or returns an error such as 404 Not Found if there is nothing there.
• DNS records (including the name servers) connect the two. They tell browsers which server to ask for your domain.

You lease a domain name rather than own it, so it has to be renewed. The company you register it with (the registrar) and the company that hosts the site can be different, and bundling them is optional.

What a domain name is made of

Mozilla's web documentation explains that a domain name is a human-readable address for a server, so people do not need to remember IP addresses, which are hard to remember and can change. Read it from right to left:

Each label can be 1 to 63 characters of letters, digits and hyphens, with no hyphen at the start or end.

What happens when you type an address

1. You type a name, such as example.org.
2. Your computer checks its local DNS cache for the matching IP address.
3. If it is not cached, it asks a DNS server, which returns the IP address.
4. The browser connects to the web server at that address and asks for the page.

DNS data is cached for a time and then refreshed from authoritative servers, so a change to a record can take hours to spread.

Who is who

Buying a domain

Mozilla's page makes these points: you do not buy a domain outright, you pay to use it for one or more years and can renew it, with renewals taking priority over new applications. You can check whether a name is free with a registrar's "whois" lookup. A misspelled name is paid for and cannot be undone, so check it carefully. Give a valid real-world address, because registrars may close domains without one. The page gives no prices, so compare renewal prices on each registrar's own page.

What the UK's National Cyber Security Centre advises

The advice is aimed at organisations, but the points carry over to a small site:

• Keep the domain in an account you control, not under the hosting company's login.
• Make sure more than one trusted person can get in, and turn on two-factor sign-in for the registrar account.
• Turn on auto-renew and use a payment card that will not expire, because a lapsed name can be registered by someone else. Our guide to domain renewal and expiry explains what happens after a missed renewal.
• Remove old DNS records when you stop using a service.
• Watch for unexpected changes to name servers or mail records.

Questions to ask before you buy

1. Is the domain registered in my name, with my contact details?
2. What does it cost at renewal, not just in the first term? Check the seller's own page.
3. Can I move the domain to another registrar, and what does the registrar say about transfers?
4. Does the hosting plan suit the type of site I am building? Our guide to web hosting types compares them.
5. How do I get a full copy of my site if I leave? See website backups and the 3-2-1 rule.
6. If I want email on my domain, is it included? See SPF, DKIM and DMARC.