the deal looked great. hosting with domain name thrown in, first year cheap, one invoice, one login. it is the default recommendation on every beginner list and i took it without thinking about it for a second.
three things went wrong, none of them dramatic:
1- renewal. the name renews at whatever the host charges, and because it sits inside the hosting bill you never see the line item until the total jumps.
2- leverage. the day i wanted to move hosts, the host also held the name. transfers are not blocked exactly, they are slow. a code to request, a ticket, a wait, and all of that lands in the middle of a migration you have already started.
3- dns. i wanted mail in one place and the site in another and the control panel only really wants you to do the simple thing. doable, just fiddly, and every help doc assumes you are keeping the lot with them.
what i do now is buy the name at a registrar that sells nothing else, and buy hosting on its own. it costs a few pounds more in year one and nothing after that. the boring version of this is that you want to be able to sack any one supplier without touching the other two.
not saying the bundle is a scam, it is simpler for someone who will never move. how many first sites never move though?
Source: r/WebsiteStarters · by /u/Flashy8-8