Can You Buy A Domain And Host It Somewhere Else

What Is A Domain Name

Domain names are relatively cheap to register through an Internet Domain registrar like GoDaddy.com or Register.com, though they must be renewed every year or few years. Anyone can register a domain name, and the name is yours until you stop renewing it.

Which brings us to the issue of

What Does Transferring A Domain Mean

Transferring a domain name means changing the registrar with which your domain name is registered. If you have already tracked down and purchased that perfect domain name for your business or project, but find yourself displeased with the level of service provided by your current registrar, dont worry.

What To Do When You Are Finally Ready To Start Your Website

What happens when you are finally ready to associate a website with your domain name? At that point in time,you will need to carry out the rest of the steps in my article onHow to Create Your Own Website.

Briefly, this means that you’ll need to get a webhost, go back to your registrar’s website, log into your account , and pointthat domain name to your website. Then you’ll of course have to design the website itself, perhaps byusinga web editor like Expression Web or someother thing. Please see my mainwebsite design guidefor details.

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Tell Me What To Do Already

Okay, there are always tradeoffs with these things. Some additional convenience in one area costs you less convenience in another area. Same for security, pricing, and so on.

So, with all that being said, and taking all of the above into account, heres my general advice:

• If you want to launch your first WordPress website on a brand new domain name: Get the domain and hosting from the same company. Start with hosting research whats available in the market , and pick the best host for your needs, then get the domain from the same company.
• If you want to launch more than one website, or youre planning to expand your portfolio rather quickly: Get the domains and hosting from separate companies. Preferably two companies: All of your domains from one, and all of your hosting from the other. This gives you more room to move around and adjust your setup altogether in case your goals change or anything happens.

They say, dont keep all your eggs in one basket, but lets not go crazy here. I believe that both approaches buying your domain name and hosting from the same company versus from two separate companies have their place, and the right choice depends only on your requirements.

So whats your final decision? Are you buying your next domain name from a web hosting company or from a domain name registrar?

Apply The New Nameservers Values

The next step of pointing a domain name to a new host is to replace the domains old nameservers. Heres how to do it:

Keep these tips in mind should there be any difference between the number of nameservers and the number of available fields:

• If your hosting provider only gives you two nameservers, but your registrar provides you with four or more fields, enter the first two, leaving the other ones empty.
• If your hosting provider gives you three nameservers, but your registrar only allows you to enter two, use the first two nameservers.

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The Freedom To Move Supplier

Similarly, if you want to move to a new website designer or support, having control over your domain will seriously ease the process of switching to a new supplier. This is because you can simply change the place the website address points to, without having to deal with a potentially disgruntled incumbent supplier.

Can I Cancel My Domain Name Registration

The answer to this question depends on where you registered your domain and the TLD itself. Some hosts and providers will let you cancel and provide a refund, while others may permit the cancellation without a refund, or simply encourage you to let the domain name expire. Therefore, its a good idea to check out prospective domain name registrars policies before making a purchase.

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What Happens After I Buy My Domain

The first thing to know is that your domain is not a website, its just the name of your website on the Internet. Youve reserved the name, but youll still need the actual site. If youve bought your domain through your hosting provider, you should already have it set up, but if youve just bought the domain, youll need to point it to a hosting provider by changing the DNS settings.

If you dont know how to build a site, you can read our guide on the best code-free website builders. These services let you build your site without coding, often just by applying a premade template. Weebly and Wix are easy to use, and both have free plans to get started.

RELATED:How To Accept Credit Card Payments On Your Website

If youre planning on building a blog, youll probably want to use WordPress, which is a content management system that handles all of your blog posts with a nice editor and powerful templates. Youll still need to host it, so you can read our guide on the best-managed WordPress hosting providers to find whats right for you.

Holding Your Hosting Or Domain As A Hostage

Many hosting and domain registrationservices offer the two tied together in confusing and obnoxious ways.

If you want to cancel just your hosting,you may find that your domain has become more expensive. Or perhaps the domainis canceled with the hostingbecause everything was offered as a bundle.

Keeping your registrar and web host separate allows you to prevent this kind of thing from happening. It stops one company from having so much leverage against you.

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What Is A Domain Transfer

A domain transfer is the process of switching your domain name from one registrar to another. To be eligible for a transfer, you must have been with your current registrar for at least 60 days, since ICANN enforces a 60-day Change of Registrant lock.

You might want to initiate a domain transfer for a number of reasons. Maybe your current registrar has suddenly increased their prices, or your site is taking more time to load. Maybe you’ve found a better deal somewhere else and prefer to consolidate multiple domains under a single DNS registrar.

Whatever the reason, we’ve got you covered. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to transfer a domain.

The Risk Of Losing Contact And The Nightmare Sabotage

Fairly often I am asked to help rescue a website which the client cannot access because they do not have hosting access or domain access either. This can be a time-consuming process to resolve. I have also experienced the designer with a grudge, who pleasantly grafittied my new clients existing website during the domain Transfer out process. We were helpless at that time to stop him.

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It’s A Common Practice

Reserving domain names is actuallya more common practice than you may think. Many experienced webmasters do it automatically long before they start a website.Most even register multiple variations of a name for a single idea, since at that early stage in the planning process, it’shard to be sure which name they might finally settle on. And as everyone knows, domain names sell like hot cakes, so a namethey think of today might not be available tomorrow.

What I’m trying to say is that you’re not alone in reserving domain names that you might want to use. Like many otherwebmasters, I too believe that it’s a good idea to do it. It’s just too easy for someone to beat you to adomain name, even if that name is some weird made-up word that doesn’t occur in the dictionary. If you want tobe sure that a name is available for you to use in the future, the only way is to get it while you can.And as you can see, it’s actually quite aneasy process, since you don’t really need to do anything else, other than getting the name from the registrar.

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Copyright © 2011-2020 Christopher Heng. All rights reserved.Get more free tips and articles like this,on web design, promotion, revenue and scripting, from .

If You Purchase Your Domain Name From Square Do You Own It To Take It Somewhere Else If You Leave

I am trying to find out if I purchase a domain name from Square, is it mines to use elsewhere if I ever leave square shopping?

In theory the answer is yes but I haven’t gone through Square to purchase a domain name, I use the web hosting company I want to use for this purpose.

That being said, When you purchase a domain name you own it but the registrar may be Square, or whomever they are associated with, and in the future when you want to move to a different host they will have to release the domain and ‘approve’ the transfer. Shouldn’t be a big deal but it may take a few days to get all of the of the moving parts to come together.

A lot of times you can get really good deals on domain names from web hosting companies. You just have to shop around. I use BlueHost and they give you a free domain name for 1 year if you sign up for their hosting service. I think GoDaddy has a similar deal.

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How To Buy A Domain Name For Your Site

Follow these 7 steps to get a domain name you love:

What If My Domain Has Expired Can I Still Transfer It To Another Registrar

Yes. If your domain has recently expired, you can still transfer it to another registrar. Youll need to renew it with your current registrar, then initiate the transfer.

Make sure that the domain name hasnt been deleted by your current registrar and that youre still in the Redemption Grace Period . If more than 60 days have passed, your expired domain may be made available for purchase to the public.

With your domain transferred and ready to go, its time to create a solid SEO strategy that will drive organic traffic to your website. Download our SEO Starter Pack to revamp or jumpstart your SEO efforts.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in February 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Originally published Feb 3, 2021 7:00:00 AM, updated February 03 2021

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Using A Domain You Already Own

If you already own a domain name that is registered elsewhere, you can still use it with your Bluehost account. You’ll need to change your domain’s settings to point to Bluehost. To do that, contact your registrar or log in to your account with your current registrar and change the name servers to:

This tells your registrar that Bluehost is now the hosting provider. It doesn’t move website content that is something you’ll do later in your control panel. Once that’s been done, every host and internet service provider will take around 24-48 hours for the nameservers to associate with your domain. This is called DNS propagation.

To learn more about DNS propagation, please see DNS Propagation.

Once a domain has been pointed here , there are two ways you can use the domain on your account. You can transfer the domain’s registration to your Bluehost account, or you can assign the domain name to your account without transferring the registration.

Note: To transfer your domain’s registration to Bluehost, check out this article. To assign the domain to your account without transferring the registration, check out this article. If you need to change the primary domain name, please refer to How To Change Your Primary Domain.

What If My Domain Is Already Taken

If someone already has your domain, you might still be able to buy it, but it will cost more. This is because instead of buying it from a registrar for a standard price, youll have to buy it off of whoever has it. Many people register domains they think could be profitable and then sell them on domain marketplaces like Sedo and Afternic. You can try searching those services if you need that specific domain.

The cheaper thing to do though is to try a different top level domain . There are many mainstream ones like .org, .net, and .co, but also some more obscure ones like .xyz, .biz, and .business. Often these wont be taken, and you can find a domain with the same name by buying one of these.

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Domains And Hosting A Few Basics

Owning a blog or website involves two separate pieces, your domain and your host. Its important to understand these elements for the most effective management of your site.

The domain is the address people use to get to your site. For example, this sites domain is andreawhitmer.com. You can register a domain with any number of registrars or providers basically you pay an annual fee to use that particular web address. If you stop paying, someone else can use the domain instead.

Website hosting is the service that actually stores your websites files. If you have a free blog through Blogger or WordPress.com, then your host is Google or WordPress, respectively. Self-hosted websites rent server space from a company that agrees to store your files.

Basically, you put your websites files on your hosts servers, then tell your domain to point to those files when someone puts in your URL. Its kind of like putting a SIM card in a cell phone the SIM card tells that phone, Hey, you work with this particular phone number now. Just like you can switch out a phones SIM card and make the phone work with a different phone number, your domain can be set to work with a different web hosting service.