Domain and hosting: what they are, and why both must be yours

Your domain is the address of your site — what a customer types into a browser. Hosting is the space on a server where the site actually sits. They are two separate services, they are paid yearly, and both must be registered in your name and your email address. If they are in the developer's name, the site you paid for is not entirely yours.

That is the short answer. Here is what each one does, and where people usually get caught out.

The domain is an address, and you rent it

A domain is yourcompany.ba or yourcompany.com. You do not buy it forever — you register it for a year or more and renew it. If a renewal is missed, the domain is released after a while and anyone can take it.

A few practical points:

• .ba reads as serious for a company trading in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and is registered through an accredited registrar.
• .com is global, and makes sense if you also work outside the country or plan an English version of the site.
• Shorter is better. The company name, no hyphens or numbers, if there is any way to manage it.
• If the name is taken, do not add "-bh" or "-official". Change the word instead.

A domain is not a website. You can register one today and leave it empty for years — plenty of people do exactly that before any work on a site starts.

Hosting is the space the site lives in

Hosting is the server that delivers your site to a visitor who opens it. It is paid monthly or yearly. This is where people most often economise in the wrong place: cheap shared hosting means your site shares a machine with hundreds of others, and loads slowly at busy times.

Load speed is not cosmetic. Google uses it as a ranking factor, and a visitor on a phone with a weak signal gives up before they ever see what you offer.

The sites I build in Next.js do not need classic hosting in that sense. They are published on a platform that serves them from a network of servers close to the visitor. In practice that means faster loading and less maintenance for you — and not one word you need to understand for it to work.

Why ownership has to be in your name

This is the part I wrote the article for.

If the domain and hosting are registered to the developer's email, then:

• you cannot change developer without their cooperation;
• you cannot move the site if they stop answering messages;
• you cannot prove ownership of a name you have used for years;
• and if a renewal goes unpaid, you find out when the site disappears.

Usually there is no bad intent behind it. It was simply quicker for someone to register everything on their own account. The consequence is the same either way.

Doing it properly is simple: the domain and hosting are in your name and your email, you pay for them, and the developer is given access as a collaborator. That is how I work, and it is what I would ask of anyone.

How to check what you actually have

If the site already exists, three checks:

1. Run a public domain-ownership lookup (whois) for your address and see whose name it returns.
2. Find the email address the renewal notices go to. Is it yours, or somebody else's?
3. Ask your developer for the login details for the domain and hosting. A straight answer comes back the same day.

If you cannot answer one of those, it is worth sorting out now rather than at the moment you need it.

What next

If you are only starting out, register the domain first, and in your own name. See how I build sites, or send me a message and I will tell you what your particular case needs. If the site already exists, I will check for free whose name the domain and hosting are in.

Frequently asked

Who pays for the domain and hosting — me or the developer? You do, directly. The developer can set all of it up for you, but the invoice and the ownership go in your name. That way you are not dependent on anyone.

What if the domain I want is taken? First check whether it is actually in use. If it is sitting empty it can sometimes be bought, but the price is a matter of negotiation. It is usually faster and cheaper to find another good version of the name.