Separating hosting service from domain registrar?

[saga29]

Hi, I'm starting my first website and read that I should keep the host and registrar separate. Is this strictly necessary? I registered the domain at Namecheap and they have a good interface so far, and very reasonable hosting packages. If I add hosting and am unhappy, why couldn't I switch hosting services later, leaving the domain at Namecheap?

[Geek-9pm]

Yes.
Some website administrators think it's a good idea to keep the hosting part and the domain part separate. However, it is really a question of how you feel about the integrity of the hosting and domain services offered to you.
Now if you can use your imagination, imagine this situation where the same company could offer you both medical services and legal services. Thus your doctor will be working for the same company as your lawyer. Of course, in real life that could never happen, that would be a huge conflict of interest.
A domain name for your website is not very costly at all. Typically about $12 a year. Your web hosting costs could vary widely, any where from a few dollars a year up into the hundreds or even thousands of dollars. People remember your website by the domain name. They have almost no idea about who the hosting company is. Your domain name becomes your reputation. In time your domain name and its reputation become the most valuable asset you have. If your hosting service is not able to satisfy your needs, even switch the name servers in your domain account to another web hosting service. So one of the things you'll be interested in is how easy is it to change the name servers for your domain name. Having a domain registrar that is very honest and has the highest integrity would be very important to you.
Let me get to the point. If you had a dispute with year domain registrar it should be easy to resolve the issue. After all, you're only paying a few dollars a year for the domain name so there should not be any dispute about share ownership of the domain name. The registrar only makes a small amount from registering your domain for every year.
The web hosting service is another issue. If there is any way he can take hold of your website it would be through the domain name. You can make backups of all the materialon the website and the web hosting service cannot use that material without violating copyright laws. However, if there is some way for him to obtain the domain name he could make things very difficult for you and enjoy the use of your website for his own gain. Do you see now how that could be a conflict between the registrar and the hosting service?
Of course, this does not apply if you really are certain about the integrity of the company you have chosen. But bear in mind you are dealing with two different services under one company. Now that's not always a bad idea, but in some cases it presents a conflict of interest for the domain registrar and hosting service to be the same company. At the present time there are no laws or accepted standards to prevent the hosting service to also offer domain registrar service.

The reason I get kind of hot about this issue is because I have been stung badly. Because of a dispute over a hosting service, my domain registrar stroll  my domain names. To me these domain names had some value other than the money I paid to him for the registration service. But because I had a dispute with him over a hosting service, he proceeded to take my domain names because of my refusal to pay for a service that I did not order. That particular company is no longer in business. That is not much consolation to me, I lost the intellectual value of the domain names that I had carefully chosen.
So, now you know why I have this idea about keeping the two services separate. It is very unlikely that anything like that would ever happen again to someone like yourself. You seem  to be a person that is very cautious and very careful, so you would probably not make the same mistake I did.

By the way, I did this from dictation because I have a handicap and I can't
catch all the typos and errors I might make.   

[saga29]

Wow, thank you so much for the thorough reply. Your metaphor makes complete sense. I guess I’m nonetheless tempted to host with Namecheap based on the reviews and pricing. As a technical question, if I took that risk that they have integrity, and later decide to change hosts for any reason - would the process be significantly more difficult to transfer hosts, while keeping the registrar at Namecheap, than it would be moving between 2 hosts when the registrar is a third party?

[Geek-9pm]

My personal preference is Godaddy.com as registrar. But I avoid all the frills they offer. I  have had, over the years, almost a hundred domains with them. It is very easy to buy anew domain and very easy to switch name servers. For some reason, maybe technical, they have very fast DNS maintenance. So I have been able to change hosting withing 24 hours or less.

Right now one of the best hosting services is 1and1.com with very attractive prices on bare bones web sites. They might offer a special on a domain at the same time. Then after a year you can switch to another registrar if you think it wold be a wise move.  Myself, I only pay for registration from year to year.

For awhile I did a lot of speculation on domain names.  But I never got rich. Sometimes you can buy a block of domains at time for a discount and next  try to sell them one at a time for p profit. I think I lost money. I try not to think about it.

Some hosts will let you use the web space for a large number of domains. So you can make a basic web site and sell the whole package to a person newly interested in having a web site. Resenting is allowed and encouraged.

[camerongray]

I can't see any reason to not host with your domain registrar, if anything it simplifies the whole thing.  The only reason you may want to host elsewhere is if you find another hosting provider that is better/cheaper than the hosting that your domain registrar offers.

The trick here isn't to go to two separate companies, it's to pick the company you use carefully, you don't want to use a small provider run by people who don't really know what they are doing which will inevitably disappear overnight.

If I add hosting and am unhappy, why couldn't I switch hosting services later, leaving the domain at Namecheap?

Absolutely nothing stopping you from doing that.