Q: I still consider myself a newbie, but am gaining knowledge! I went to Affiliate Summit East 2012, and recently to Affiliate Summit West 2013. I’m signing up for James Martell’s new school, and am psyched! I’ve had a few bumps along the way, getting sucked into schemes that teach me nothing, so it’s great to be hooked-up with you and Affiliate Summit. My question: I joined HostGator for web hosting. Do I still need to register with GoDaddy, even though I’m signed up with HostGator? I guess I’m not clear on what the difference is between web hosting and registering a domain name. Once I sign up for any web hosting site, does that automatically register my domain as well? What’s the purpose for registering?
A: Web hosting companies and domain registrars are two separate things, and you’ll need to pay for both to have a website.
In the case of HostGator, they are a hosting company that also provide domain registration services.
And with GoDaddy, they are a domain registrar that also sells web hosting, as well as many other services.
I personally use GoDaddy strictly for domains, and then I use other web hosting companies for my sites: 1and1, BlueHost, Liquid Web, RackSpace, and WP Engine.
You can certainly keep it all in the HostGator environment for convenience, but you will still have to pay for the web hosting and domain registration.
If you are struggling with the process, I cover how to go about getting the hosting and domain setup in my book, Extra Money Answer. My examples are with BlueHost and GoDaddy, but many of the hosts and domain registrars have similar interfaces.