I want to own my website address. Can I own my own name and still have it hosted?

Posted by kent on February 2nd, 2010

The following post in our Reader Question series is an actual user submitted question:

Q: I want to own my website address-my time is near for renewal with my hosting company but I don't feel comfortable with them paying for it. Can I own my own name and still have it hosted?

A: This is an interesting question, because it brings up the question of just who owns a domain. We talk about "domain ownership" and "buying a domain" but the truth is, no one ever owns their domain. Not even Yahoo! or Google. Which is to say that domain registration is always a yearly expenditure. It's a bit like paying your annual car registration fees (and if you don't pay your car registration, the DMV will eventually haul your car away). Your web host is either a licensed domain registrar or they work with someone who is.

But you shouldn't worry about your web hosting company "owning" your domain if you signed up for web hosting under a free-registration-for-life plan. The web host has registered the domain in your name, just as if you'd registered the domain without them. You're only eligible for free registration as long as you host with the company. But they won't continue to if you're no longer a customer; payment responsibility will revert back to you (and it's up to you to transfer it to a new web host or registrar).

Now, I'm sure they wouldn't mind at all if you called up and said you wanted to pay instead. You'd save them $30.00 or so per year. But it's probably more trouble than it's worth, for them and for you. The most important thing is to not let your registration lapse. We should also say that it's always possible that some web host does things a little differently, but this is how it works with most of them.