Domain, hosting and email: what they are and why they should be yours

Every website rests on three separate things: a domain, hosting and email. They're often bought together, so people treat them as one. They aren't, and knowing the difference saves money, time and the occasional crisis.

The domain: your address

The domain is the name people type, such as prowebio.com or yourbusiness.si. You don't buy it outright. You rent it year by year from a registrar, a company accredited to register domains on your behalf. For .si addresses the registry is Register.si, run by Arnes, and you always register through one of its accredited registrars.

A .si or .com domain usually costs somewhere around €10–30 a year. Cheap first-year offers often renew at a higher price, so look at the renewal price, not just the first one.

Hosting: where the website lives

Hosting is the computer your website runs on, connected to the internet day and night. It can be a shared plan for a few euros a month, your own virtual server, or a platform such as Shopify that hosts the shop for you. Your domain points visitors to the hosting through DNS records, the internet's address book.

Email: often the part that matters most

Email on your own domain, such as ana@yourbusiness.si, is a separate service again. It can come with your hosting, from Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, or from your own mail server. If the website is down for an hour, few people notice. If email stops, you notice straight away, so choose it carefully and don't tie it to whoever happens to build your website.

How the three fit together

• —The registrar holds your domain and lets you choose where its DNS records are managed.
• —DNS records send website visitors to your hosting (A or CNAME records) and email to your mail provider (MX records).
• —The hosting serves the website, and the mail provider receives, stores and sends your email.

Because they're separate, you can change web studios or hosting without touching your email, as long as each part is set up on its own and you know where each one lives.

Make sure they're yours

This is the part we'd most like every business owner to read. Whoever registers the domain controls it. If an agency registers it in its own name, moving away later can be slow and awkward, even when everyone means well.

• —Register the domain in your company's name, as its holder, with an email address you'll always have access to.
• —Keep the logins for your registrar, hosting and email yourself, and turn on two-step verification. Give your web studio its own access instead of sharing yours.
• —Turn on automatic renewal and put the expiry date in your calendar. An expired domain can be registered by someone else.
• —Write down where each part lives: registrar, DNS, hosting and email. One page is enough.

How we handle it

When we set up a website, we register the domain in your name and hand over every login at the end. Our hosting and maintenance is optional, and if you'd rather host somewhere else, we'll help you move. Not sure who controls your domain today? Write to us and we'll help you find out.