Domains and hosting, without the jargon

The difference, plainly

A domain is the address people type: yourbusiness.co.uk. You rent it, usually yearly, from a registrar. Nobody else can have it while you hold it.

Hosting is the computer that stores your website files and sends them to visitors. You rent that too, usually monthly or yearly.

They are independent. You can move hosting without changing your domain, and point your domain at a different host whenever you like. Being sold them as one inseparable package is a warning sign, because it makes leaving harder.

The connection between them is DNS, which is essentially a directory translating your domain into the address of your server. MDN has a clear explanation (opens in a new tab) if you want the detail.

Ownership: the thing that actually matters

Your domain must be registered in your name and your business's details, with an email address you control.

When a designer registers it in their own name, you do not own your web address. If the relationship ends badly, or they simply become uncontactable, recovering it ranges from awkward to impossible — and your email usually runs on the same domain.

Check yours. A WHOIS lookup shows the registrant, though many registrations hide personal details behind privacy protection. If in doubt, log into the registrar account yourself — if you cannot, that is the answer. More on this in choosing a web designer.

What matters when choosing hosting

Beyond price, which is usually the least important factor.

• Server locationPhysical distance adds latency. A UK business serving UK customers wants UK or European servers. This is exactly the problem covered in site speed.
• Free SSL certificatesShould be included and automatic. Let's Encrypt (opens in a new tab) made these free; anyone charging meaningfully for a basic certificate is behind the times.
• Automatic backupsDaily, stored off-site, and restorable by you without raising a support ticket.
• A staging environmentSomewhere to test changes before they go live. Enormously valuable and often missing from budget plans.
• Support that answersTest it before committing. Send a pre-sales question and see how long a reply takes.
• Resource limitsVery cheap shared hosting packs many sites onto one server. If a neighbour has a busy day, your site slows down.

When hosting is genuinely the problem

Sometimes a slow site is slow because the server is slow, and no amount of optimisation fixes it. The signal is a high time-to-first-byte — the delay before the server sends anything at all — while the page itself is lightweight.

If your images are optimised, caching is on, and the server still takes over a second to respond, hosting is the bottleneck. Moving host is disruptive but occasionally the only real fix, and it should be planned alongside maintenance and backups.

Sources and further reading

• DNS explained (opens in a new tab)MDN Web DocsConcise and vendor-neutral.
• Let's Encrypt (opens in a new tab)Let's Encrypt (ISRG)Free SSL certificates — the reason HTTPS should never be an extra charge.
• ICANN Lookup (opens in a new tab)ICANNCheck who a domain is actually registered to.

Common questions

How much should hosting cost?

A small business site runs comfortably on shared hosting for a modest monthly figure. Paying more buys speed, better support and staging environments. Paying the absolute minimum usually shows up as a slow site.

Can I move hosting without losing my website?

Yes. The files and database are copied to the new host, tested there, and then DNS is pointed across. Done properly there is no downtime. Done carelessly you can lose email, so it is worth planning.

Do I need a .co.uk or a .com?

For a UK business serving UK customers, .co.uk is well understood and signals locality. .com is more international. Many businesses buy both and redirect one to the other, which costs little and prevents someone else taking it.