A hosting name is different than a domain. These are two different things in web development. Sometimes people mess up with these two. As a result, they signup for wrong things and end up with cancellation at a certain period. Let’s make things clear.
What is hosting name?
A hosting name simply refers to the company that stores your website files & folders. For example Bluehost, Dreamhost, Siteground, Hostgator, WP Engine, IONOS, etc.
Note that all the hosting companies also sell domains. But it’s not their main business. Also, most of the hosting companies offer a one-year free domain with their hosting packages as a compliment. But it’s not an intelligent or smart decision to take this compliment. But why? I will describe the reason a bit later.
You can compare hosting with a Pendrive. Its sole job is to store files & folders. But hosting is accessible 24 hours and it has some built-in features or it comes with some special environments. Such as Apache, MySQL, etc. Otherwise, it’s very similar to a hard drive or Pendrive.
What is domain?
A domain is simply the main part of the URL. It is excluding any protocol & prefix. That means a domain is a URL without HTTP & WWW. Here HTTP is a protocol & WWW is a prefix.
For example: if your website URL is “http://www.example.com/” then the domain is simply “example.com”.
There are lots of domain registration companies that allow you to register your domain with them. For example Godaddy, Name.com, Namecheap, etc (including the above hosting companies).
Why you should not buy domain & hosting from the same company?
I mentioned earlier that it’s not an intelligent decision to take the free domain with your hosting. Because it may cause problems when you try to transfer the domain to somewhere else in the future. Sometimes the hosting companies register the free domain by their name. Though it’s a rare case, it’s always good practice to avoid the hassle.
It’s obvious to transfer domains as your business grows or traffic increases or any other technical reasons.
Also, for companies whose main business is selling domains, (generally) their hosting is not so impressive.
For these reasons, I advise you to buy your domain & hosting from two different companies. Just keep these two things separate and take full control over them.
I hope that it cleared your confusion and it will help you to manage your domain & hosting precisely in the long run. But if you still have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me.
