I'm coming to the end of my degree at Uni (in fact I graduate tomorrow,) and so my Uni web account gets cancelled shortly afterwards. I've never been through the process of registering domain names and getting hosting, which I now need to do in order to house my website somewhere.

As far as I understand it, I need to:

1) Register a domain name.

2) Get some hosting,

3) Point the domain name at the webspace I get in step 2.

Is it that simple or are there other things I would be advised to do? The website is very low traffic with nothing much of importance on it. Things like PHP etc I can hunt for in step 2).

I'm just a bit confused since a lot of places like GoDaddy etc will sell you both a domain name and hosting, or either one individually. Is it best to get a domain name from someone well known and then point it at some hosting elsewhere that fits my needs, or go with a combined package?

Would recommend you register domain and webhosting seperately, for example use namecheap.com for your domain, other than that your steps are correct

0beron,

In the old days, these were distinct steps and I would have recommended separate hosting from registration. But these days many of the better hosting companies actually offer very good registration services. For example, I have 1and1.com and I pay $5.99 a year for domain registration whereas beforehand I was paying $35/year with Regi... well, let's say a much larger registrar. $6/year vs $35/year. When you start talking about having 4 or 5 domains, that becomes a significant difference.

Also, step 3 is normally done automagically when you buy a combined package -- otherwise your hosting company will tell you the nameserver to use for your domain and you just plug it into your registrar's configuration settings.

Good luck -- it's a fun little task setting up your first domain.

0beron, yes it's pretty much that simple. A lot of hosting companies offer free domains. Just make sure if your hosting company registers your domain for you, that they use your email address as the admin contact. That way you won't have any trouble transferring your domain elsewhere in the future if you had to.

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Good luck in your search and make sure you do some research no matter what company you go with. And don't forget, you get what you pay for