One of the most common points of confusion when you're setting up a website for the first time is the relationship between a domain name and a hosting plan. They are frequently purchased together, sometimes from the same provider in a single transaction, which can create the impression that they are one product. They are not.
Two different jobs
A domain name is an address — for example, example.co.nz. Its job is to give people and browsers a memorable way to locate a website, instead of using a numerical server address.
Web hosting is the storage and server infrastructure described in What Web Hosting Actually Does (and Why You Need It) — the actual files and the machine that serves them.
A useful comparison is a business's physical premises and its street address. The address tells people where to find the business; it does not, by itself, contain the business. If you own a domain name without hosting, that is the equivalent of having an address with no building at it.
They can be bought from different companies
Because a domain and a hosting plan are separate products, you do not have to buy them from the same provider. It is common practice to register a domain with one company and host the associated website with another. If you want to compare domain registration prices specifically, separately from hosting, you can do so at domaincompare.nz, a sister site to Host Compare. If you're looking for hosting separately, you can start by comparing web hosts here at Host Compare. Domains and hosting also each have their own renewal prices, which can differ from the price you first pay, as explained in Introductory Pricing vs. Renewal Pricing: The Oldest Trick in Hosting.
What a TLD is
The letters after the final dot in a domain name — .nz, .com, .org, and so on — are called the top-level domain, or TLD. Some TLDs carry specific connotations; for example, a .nz domain represents a connection to New Zealand. Others, such as .com, are more general. TLD choice can affect both price and, in some cases, how a domain is perceived by visitors.
What nameservers do
Once you have both a domain and a hosting plan, they need to be connected. This is done through nameserver settings.
- The exact settings that you need will be provided by your web host.
- The tools to update your settings are provided by the company that sold you your domain.
If you get your hosting and domain from the same company, you might not need to do any nameserver management yourself.
Nameserver settings tell the internet which hosting server contains the website for that domain. This is typically a small number of technical settings that you only need to enter once, rather than an ongoing task. If you change hosts later you will need to update your nameservers. Many providers will help with this, and with moving your website, as covered in Getting Help When You Need It: Why Customer Support Matters More Than It Looks.
The common mistake
A frequent misunderstanding is assuming that registering a domain name is the same as having a working website. Registering example.co.nz reserves that address, but nothing will appear when someone visits it until you have a hosting plan and have pointed the domain to it. You need to purchase both things, and connect them, before your website is functional.
*This article was drafted with the help of AI. It was fact-checked and edited by a real person.