Using a Godaddy domain name - what's the advantage?

[Dianamoon]

I'm coming back to Weebly after a few years away. The last time, knowing absolutely nothing about the process, I bought a domain name from Godaddy and built my site with Weebly. 

Now I'm back, and a little wiser. I can't see the advantage. Is there? All I do with Weebly is sign up, get a free year, and then pay after that.  Am I missing something?

[Creature1]

If you are considering buying your domain through Weebly where you are already hosting your site, I would absolutely not do that. It is best to always separate your hosting company (weebly) from your domain registration company (godaddy).

Keeping your domain registered with a separate company from weebly (your host) means as soon as you are done with weebly or whatever host or site builder you have, you can easily have the power to direct your domain name (website address) to your new real estate on the internet, your new webuilt and hosted site, to your third-party marketplace shop, your instagram account, or wherever. 

There are many complaints against weebly about them holding their customers hostage that registered domains with them. 

There have also been many weebly "outages" over the last few years. In the last year it has been a monthly occurance. That is really high for a hosting company. If weebly has a problem again as I know they will because they always do and they for some reasons have all of our site down for over a day or two, I can easily go into my godaddy account and simply redirect my domain name to a new space where customers can still purchase from me, and people looking for my work can still find me. 

It's an insurance policy so that weeby can't pull the rug out from under you. It's a personal decision and not everyone thinks its necessary, but I personally like to know that I have the security to reroute my traffic elsewhere if needed. I don't know if you noticed how horrible weebly customer service is, but its best to have your own contingency plan. 

You can think of it like your domain is like your phone number and Weebly being like being your phone service provider. If it is important for you to have the freedom to change phone services while retaining your same exact phone number, then keeping your domain registrar separate from your host should also be important to you. 

you don't have to take my word for it, google the following and you can read up on some other reasons:

"why its a good idea to keep your domain company and hosting company separate"

"keeping your domain and hosting separate"

[Dianamoon]

"If you are considering buying your domain through Weebly where you are already hosting your site, I would absolutely not do that. It is best to always separate your hosting company (weebly) from your domain registration company (godaddy)."

So confused now. I already have an account w/GoDaddy - I researched this and discovered that if I buy my domain name with them, I get one free month BUT I'll have to pay $144 for the year thereafter.

I just opted for the 2 year plan with Weebly and I get the domain name for free (plus $10 with the SEO privacy, whatever...) - yeah, I'll have to pay $20 for the second year but so what. I'll be rich then. 

If I had gone with GoDaddy, I'd have to pay them $144 (for what?) and also pay Weebly. I could of course build a website entirely thru GoDaddy but I'm not a computer person, I just want my site up and running.

Am I missing something?

[Adam7]

Some people prefer to pay for everything in one place, and any domain purchased through us is pre-configured to work with a Weebly site. You can totally use a GoDaddy domain instead, though, and for many people they prefer registering domains somewhere else instead. As long as the site itself is upgraded to a paid plan in order to use the domain as the site address, you can do whichever one suits your needs the best.