Should You Host Your B-to-B Website With Your Domain Name Registrar?

Ever wonder the difference between a domain name and hosting? In an article by Industrial Marketer, they dive into the distinction between the two. 

What is a domain name?

A domain name is purchased through, what is referred to as a registrar. A domain name is similar to having a phone number. Much like you need a provider to receive phone calls at your phone number, you need to host your website somewhere for your users to be able to view it. Companies like GoDaddy, Namecheap, Register.com, and Network Solutions (which we use here at Strand) provide you with the ability to purchase a domain. 

After you purchase a domain name, you’ll need to have a place to put all the files that make up your website so that the world can see them. Can you guess what that is? Hosting.

What is hosting?

Now, you do not have to host your website with the same company you bought your domain from. There are quite a few other hosting options out there that may be better suited for your application. For example, companies like Amazon (AWS), Linode, Rackspace and Media3 (We use Media3 at Strand) only focus on providing hosting.

Keep in mind though, your hosting environment is going to be based on whether you are building a website, have a data farm, creating an app, or are just hosting files. Here at Strand, we do it all and make sure our domain and hosting service companies are capable of the jobs we take on.

Choosing a high-quality hosting provider is extremely important. Did you know 41% of websites getting hacked are through a weakness in the hosting platform? The statistics above speak for themselves in showing that a great host has a big impact on the security of your site.

What makes a great host? They should perform regular scans and daily backups and support the most up-to-date versions of PHP and MySQL. Also working with a team who specializes in your platform can give you the leverage you need to succeed. Read our blog discussing why WordPress websites (for example) are so vulnerable to hackers and what you can do to prevent attacks.

Key factors to understand

1) Always pay your hosting bill on time or your website will crash and your users will see an error page. No one wants that! This goes back to choosing the right hosting company. Make sure their customer service is readily available when you need them in case you forget to pay.

2) On the other hand, if you do not renew your domain name, users will be redirected to a page that usually contains messaging about an expired domain or has ads relating to the registrar. Depending on the registrar, you’ll have up to a 30-day grace period to renew the domain (and after this grace period, your domain will be available for others to buy... and we can't have that happening.) Again, when buying a domain, look into important factors like this and know the support team behind your domain. Easiest thing to do is put your domain on an auto-renew. Piece of cake! 

Learn more about the difference between a domain name and hosting by reading the full article on Industrial Marketer's website.

Contact us for further information on the hosting and domain purchase options we can offer you.

Also, check out the work we have done for some of our clients in our work section and we look forward to hearing from you.