Many web hosting companies offer to register domain names on your behalf. You think that your domain name is with your web hosting company, when, in fact, they register it through some third party registrar for you. You then receive an invoice in 2 years time from a company you never heard of, ignore it, and in the worst case lose your domain name.
Furthermore, in many cases, you will not get access to your domain name details nor will you be given a domain name control panel. Why do you need a domain name control panel? You need to be able to update the contact information for your domain name(s). If you move house for example and don't update you domain name details and for some reason you need to change registrar etc. (or because your web hosting company ceased trading), you are in danger of losing your domain name because you cannot prove any longer that you are the owner of a certain domain name.
Also, a domain name control panel allows you to change email forwarding, web forwarding, and most importantly, the domain name servers, as well as some other settings. Check out www.123-reg.co.uk if you want to find out more about that.
Have a good look around online and check out different web hosting providers. There are many large web hosting companies out there such as 1and1. The advantage of registering with a large web hosting company is that they have hardly any downtime and their servers will be fast and up-to-date with the latest spam protection etc. Web hosting can be costly though if you reqister with a large web hosting company and if you want any additional services, you will have to pay for them. Support can be an issue too - you usually have to fight through hundreds of "Frequently Asked Questions" before you are allowed to send an email to their support team. You might also have to call a Premium Rate phone number if you need to speak to someone urgently. These rates can rate from £0.50 to £2 per minute (!) or even more. In most cases, you will receive good support, but in some cases you might be put through to an unexperienced person who has to speak to their supervisor to double-check things frequently - and all that at a premium rate!
The biggest problem with large web hosting providers is that if you miss the annual payment and do not react to their payment reminders - they will remove your website, your account, without further notice. In some cases, there will not be any chance to recover your website. With a large web hosting company, your website is just a number in a very large pool of websites. If they lose your custom, so what!
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