piatkow - 2:38 pm on Dec 19, 2008 (gmt 0)

disadvantages: you have to maintain two business relationships. There are two potential points of failure on access.

advantages: If your web host goes belly up you can point the name to a different provider. If your name host goes under you don't have to rebuild your site when you sort the domain name out.

The most common problem that I have seen with people having the domain and hosting managed by the same company forgetting that they need to renew two separate contracts when they expire and end up with a domain and no site. It is a suprisingly common problem.

What you describe is how name forwarding should be handled but I have come across companies that don't let you do that but simply host a frameset locally which contains the page that you are hosting elsewhere. Make sure that you know what you are signing up for before parting with any money.

Hint: make your own diary record of the renewal dates, Mr Murphy dictates that any vital email reminder will be zapped by your spam filter.