A common question I get from clients beginning their website or blog research is, do you you have to use the registrar you register the domain name with to host your website? The answer is, NO.

Many registrars offer hosting services, just as many hosting companies also offer domain name registration. Although the company may have one name, the function of a registry and a hosting company are completely different.

A domain name registrar is an organization or commercial entity that manages the reservation of domain names and offers the registration services to the public. Registrar are accredited by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) or by a national country code top-level domain (ccTLD) authority. Registrations must also be in accordance with the guidelines of the designated domain name registries.

The function of the registrar is simply to register each domain.

The function of a hosting company (web hosts) is to provide space, on a sever for storage and in a data center for databases.