A domain name is your site’s address on the web. For instance, this site’s domain name is “jcascio.com”. In order to be valid, a domain must be registered. It’s the internet equivalent of a trademark registration. It gives you the exclusive right to use that name. But owning the trademark for a business name doesn’t give you an office or a factory or employees or other assets. It’s just the name. And domain names are exactly the same. They give you the right to use the name but don’t give you a server or network bandwidth or content or pictures or e-commerce when someone types your domain name into their browser.
The internet equivalent of the business’s office or factory, what makes it real, is a web hosting account. And just like floor space or equipment you can own it or rent it. Very few businesses actually own their own servers nowadays. They rent server space, compute power and bandwidth from hosting providers. These providers may own hundreds of servers in what are known as “co-los”, which is short for “co-located”. And almost always, smaller hosting providers (like me, for instance) actually resell server capacity from a yet larger provider.
Domain name registrations must be renewed periodically, usually every year. A typical .com renewal should only cost $10-$30 per year. Most domain name registrars offer multi-year renewels at somewhat better unit pricing. If you have an established business and don’t plan on changing the name, getting a multi-year registration is probably a worthwhile convenience, but dollar wise, it’s not significant.
Some providers package up domain name registrations with a hosting package. This is not particularly advantageous to you the customer, in my estimation, because it unnecessarily binds you to that provider. Any site developer worth their salt can set up the hosting and the registration separately and this makes things easier in case you have to change either registrars or hosting providers for any reason. Registrations are usually pretty stable, but hosting requirements or site designers may change, so give yourself the flexibility to change one without changing the other.
