Domains Explained

What is a domain and what is a hosting account and why do you need them both? I get this question all the time from new business owners. And really, the domain is very simple. It's the address of your URL. So for me, it's premiumwebsites.net. That is my domain. And you can purchase those anywhere online. And to be honest with you, The cheapest place is GoDaddy. Um, that's where I have all my domains. I know there's a lot of people out there that don't agree with GoDaddy's company policies and all of the politics behind GoDaddy. So you can get it anywhere you want. Know that your price for your domain should be somewhere between $10 and $20 a year. If you're being charged more than that, then find out exactly what you're being charged for, and, um, if you don't agree with that charge, go somewhere else. So it really doesn't matter where you buy your domain. It is simply a place to register the URL that is going to be the address for your website. There is a thing called privacy that you can add to your domain on purchase. I know at GoDaddy it's $10 a year to add privacy. I don't know the pricing for other, other companies, but privacy is basically meaning that they mask your name, address, and phone number and email address from the public database that all domains get listed in. So when you purchase a domain, all of that information goes into a public database that's accessible to anyone, and that's where you're going to be getting emails soliciting different services because they know that you just purchased a domain, and tons of phone calls as well. That happened the last domain that I purchased, tons of phone calls. But you need to balance that. Do you want your information masked from this database, which means they can't call you, can't email you, they can't mail you, all of that stuff, when on your website you are going to be putting your name, address, and phone number. Um, so if you're making that public on your website anyways, then I personally don't see the value in spending the extra money for your domain to keep that private when you're publicly putting it out there. If you're not putting that information on your website, then by all means make that private if that's a choice of yours.