When setting up a new website, it can be tempting to sign up for multiple services through one provider in order to save money and for the convenience of having everything in one place. While in theory, this is a logical idea, we’ll explain why it may not be the wisest decision to bundle your domain registration and hosting.
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Just as other companies bundle products and services, it is common practice for providers such as GoDaddy and BlueHost to offer packages which include both hosting and domain name registration. Let’s say you choose GoDaddy as your hosting provider. If you sign up for a one year or two year contract they’ll include a free domain name with your purchase. While this seems like a no-brainer decision, let’s discuss the reasons why you may want to pass on this offer.
What if your hosting company has an outage or significant downtime? If everything you own is held by that one company, you will be out of luck. On the other hand, if your domain is registered elsewhere, you could restore a backup of your website to another host, then point your domain there, bringing your site back online while the first host is still down. We had to do this at least once when a host's control panel was inaccessible for several days straight.
What if a hacker is able to access the account where both your domain name and hosting are registered? Unfortunately, they will have full control over your site and domain, and can do as they please with both. They could also mess with your email service connected to that domain This is not the case if the hacker only gains access to either your web hosting or your domain name. If they gain access to just one, you would at least have options for rescuing some or all of your web property.
Of course when you registered for a free domain for a year it sounded like a great idea! But what about when the one year period is up? Most contracts require you then pay the current monthly or annual rate for domains, which is significantly more expensive than if you had registered the domain by itself somewhere else. Since domain registration typically only costs $10-15 per year, we recommend you register your domain name separately.
There are many great hosting and domain registration providers to choose from. For domain registration, we recommend Hover, which offers a simple, uncluttered interface, with WHOIS privacy included (to keep your contact info private from the world).
For WordPress hosting, we have had excellent experiences with the following:
We are here to help answer your hosting and domain registration questions. Contact us to ensure your domain and hosting are set up in the most secure and reliable way today!
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