What Is Domain vs. Hosting?
Your domain is your address on the internet (like siteleakfix.com), and hosting is the actual computer that stores your website and serves it to visitors.
These are two separate services people often confuse. The domain is what customers type in — the name. Hosting is where the files live. You can buy them from the same company or from two different ones, and you can change either without changing the other.
For contractors, the practical thing to know is this: if you cancel hosting, your site goes dark, but you keep your domain. If you lose the domain, your website might still exist but nobody can reach it. Losing a domain is much worse than losing a host — customers won't find you, links from Google stop working, and business emails at that domain break.
Keep the domain in your own name at your own registrar login. Don't let a web developer register it 'for you' under their own account — that's how contractors end up locked out of their own web address when a relationship ends.
Real example
A roofer's marketing agency registered his domain 'as a favor.' When he switched to a new agency, the old one held the domain hostage for six months of unpaid disputes — during which his Google rankings dropped and his branded email stopped working. Owning the domain yourself avoids the entire scenario.
Wondering if this is costing you leads?
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