I'm just wondering, what is there to domain names? I ask because I currently have a website that is hosted by the same place I have my domain registered with. The website is often offline, with the error "could not contact server at blah blah". Is this purely to do with the hosting?

Because I was thinking of going to a different host, but using this current company to keep the domain (and some new ones) with, as they are pretty cheap for .com.au and .net.au domains. But if I am still going to have websites offline because of something to do with the domain providers, i'd rather move all of my business elsewhere.

Does that even make sense? It's hard asking questions when you don't really understand what you are asking!

A domain name is simply a pointer which looks like a little like this.

www.yoursite.com :: IP Address

All it does is references a name to an IP address. Or to put it more simply, it references a name to a webhost. If you site is offline a lot its purely down to your hosting. If you are looking for a new host you might want to check Site5 out. I wrote a review about them yesterday.

http://www.jasonstanley.co.uk/hostin...osting-review/