Technology is wonderful (after all, it pays the bills around here) but it can also be frustrating. The only thing worse than a glitchy computer or mobile device is a broken website – you can’t hold it in your hand, so troubleshooting is a challenge.
In all my years of dealing with websites and their related technological headaches, I’ve learned a number of ways to handle things that just don’t work the way they should. The number one way to save your sanity? Build a strong foundation by keeping your hosting, domains, email, and DNS separate.
Separate hosting, domains, email, and DNS? But isn’t that confusing?
Separating services that are commonly bundled together does introduce a bit of complication. Instead of one login, I have four. When I need to make a change, I have to think for a second.
But let’s talk about what I gain by keeping everything separate.
Moving Is No Sweat
A little over a year ago, I moved all my websites to a Cloudways server. Cloudways offers a migrator plugin that takes care of the transition simply and quickly. Once I started the migrations for all my sites, I got to work on other things and wait for the emails from Cloudways saying the transfers were finished.
My domains are all registered with Namecheap. Moving to a new host had nothing to do with my domains – no need to transfer them or hunt down EPP codes.
My email is also hosted with Namecheap. I didn’t have to worry about downtime or losing messages. I didn’t have to change a single setting or download a backup. My emails just kept rolling in as usual.
My DNS is hosted with DNSMadeEasy. As my site transfers completed, I could go into my management panel and update DNS to point to my new server – with instant propagation. No waiting 48 hours or trying to figure out if I’m still seeing the “old” version of the site.
From start to finish, I moved 25 websites to a new host in about 4 hours, completely by myself and without opening a single support ticket. I challenge anyone to beat that!
I’m Winning at Security
No online system is perfect or hack proof. That said, I don’t have to sit around worrying that someone can destroy everything I’ve worked to build.
If I hadn’t separated out all my services, someone with my credentials could read my emails, delete my site files, point my domains to other servers, and even transfer the domains to themselves – all by figuring out a single login.
With everything spread out (and different logins and passwords for each, of course), access to one wouldn’t be much of an advantage. Sure, someone with access to my server could wipe it clean, but between the automatic Cloudways backups and my offsite BlogVault backups, I’m not too concerned.
My Emails Just Work
I complain about email like everyone else, but when it comes down to it, I need my email to work. Without reliable email, I miss out on potential projects, client issues, or (even better) payment notifications.
When my email was hosted on my server, a server issue meant an email issue. And guess which email address my hosting company had on file for support tickets? Yeah, not a great plan.
I’ve had my complaints about Namecheap’s private email service (mainly the time it took for the spam protection to learn what was legit versus what to trash), but one thing I’ve never had issue with is reliability. I think I’ve been aware of a single outage since I switched my email over, but it was resolved before I even realized there was a problem.
Namecheap does require your domain to be registered with them before you can open a private email account, but I’ve kept my domains there for several years and I’m very pleased with their service. (Plus their social media team is HILARIOUS and always replies quickly on Twitter, which is an added bonus).
I Do What I Want!
This past weekend, I decided to rebuild my entire multisite network. Mostly because I’m a glutton for punishment, but also because I’d kept my previous design for nearly TWO YEARS (a record for me). I spent six years dragging the same ancient WordPress installation from one server to another, adding and subtracting and rebuilding as I went – my database was in rough shape.
So on Thursday night when I decided to start over from nothing, I threw a new app on my Cloudways server (it takes 2 minutes, literally) and logged into DNSMadeEasy to point a random domain to the clean install. I’m not kidding – DNS was propagated before the app finished installing on Cloudways. Score!
I then proceeded to torture myself all weekend long to rebuild the main site (which you’re looking at right now – be sure to tell it how pretty it is) and three subsites for a Monday night launch. Which required reissuing my SSL certificate, updating the “real” domain’s DNS, purging the records for the temp domain, and all sorts of other fun times.
You know what it didn’t include, though? Propagation time, worrying about whether emails were coming through, transferring a domain, or being forced to overwrite the old site. (After all, I’m sure I forgot things that will need to be added back later.)
The Bottom Line
Life’s too short to waste time freaking out over your websites. Or your domains. Or email. Or DNS propagation.
With so many great tools, there’s no excuse for continuing to put all your eggs in one basket. You can separate hosting, email, domain registration, and DNS in less than a day, and I guarantee you’ll save way more than a day NOT dealing with headaches in the next year or so. Do it now and thank me later.
Resource Recap
Awesome products and services recapped here for your convenience:
- Namecheap (SSL, domains, email hosting)
- Cloudways (hosting)
- BlogVault (incremental backups – one license covers a multisite network)
- DNSMadeEasy (DNS hosting including fallback DNS)
- Siteground (not actually discussed here, but a great host if you aren’t into all the nerdy technical stuff)
- WPEngine (great for those who want a totally managed hosting solution for WordPress
All Nuts and Bolts projects are built on the Genesis Framework because we believe it's the most stable and well-supported framework available. Our partners love it and so do we - once you try it, you'll never use another WordPress theme!
Comments are now closed for this article.
Marcy Diaz says
I love the redesign! (And I noticed before you mentioned it. 🙂
Thank you for this post. I did not know about NameCheap private email. That sounds like a great option for clients who want something a bit less than Gmail. They do great with domain names too.
And DNSMadeEasy sounds, well, easy. I have to rethink how I do things based on this.
The DNS took a little adjustment but it’s been great. When I buy a domain, I just point the nameservers to DNSMadeEasy, then log in there to add all my records. Changes are absolutely instant (other than waiting for Namecheap to update the nameservers, but that’s pretty quick as well). I pay for the 25-domain plan and will likely expand it,
When I work with a client who hosts DNS with their hosting, I get soooo frustrated. It has definitely been worth the cost to have an easier option!
Gary Buckingham says
We also use namecheap for all domains and update all dns records to match our cloudways server IP.
We have just setup a private email with namecheap for a client and was wondering, if a customer fills out our clients contact form from their website configured with email address, will the server send the email to namecheap email box? Thanks “great article”
Ps. We don’t fully understand why you have DNSMadeEasy when you can use your namecheap to add the records??
Hi Gary,
You probably need to set up SMTP on your client’s site just in case. Without it, emails from the contact form may go to spam, as well as things like password resets. I use a free SparkPost account for all transactional emails that send from my sites.
Regarding DNSMadeEasy, I use it because the changes I make propagate instantly - there is no wait time at all. When moving a site to a new server or adding new records this is a HUGE advantage because I don’t have to sit around waiting for the DNS changes to be seen worldwide.
Alex says
Hi there, I agree that separating services is the way to go. My client websites are either at AWS or GoDaddy, Email at Google Apps, Domains/DNS at Network Solutions. I’m curious, why do you prefer to have different providers for the domain name and the DNS? I’ve never considered splitting them up and I’m wondering what you’ve found the benefit to be.
Most domain registrars have kind of questionable DNS management capabilities. I got really tired of making a DNS change and waiting 24-48 hours for it to propagate. Dedicated services like DNSMadeEasy allow instant propagation, which saves me a ton of time and effort. For me it’s totally worth it to see my changes immediately after I make them.
Becky says
Perfect.. I was trying to figure out the best way to move all my sites over to cloudways (I already have one client there) and even more so when my shared hosting now seems to have developed a “poor” rating due to someone spamming on our shared IP. UGH! Your email solution is just what I was looking for and I appreciate you sharing this.
No problem - I’m so glad it was helpful! I’ve been pleased with Namecheap’s email, but I’ve also used Rackspace with no issues. The options are far better than they used to be for sure.
Hi Andrea,
Thank you so much for this insightful post, I literally just found it a couple of days before setting up my own online shop (and I am a total newbie in website building, I just googled DNS). I chose siteground for hosting (and would have everything registered with them), and after reading this post I will probably have email and main domain from namecheap. They offer free DNS too- compared to the 29 $ of free dns hosting (and I only have ONE website)- do you think that is fine, when I am just starting off? I dont have a very big budget to start with.
Thanks for your thoughts!
Fatima
Hi Fatima,
I think you’d be fine with that combo starting out. You could always switch things around later if needed.
Hello,
Any reason why you chose BlogVault over other backup plugins in the market? Just curious. 😉
Hi Sheena,
I’ve used nearly every backup plugin or service available, but I went with BlogVault for my own sites because (1) it makes incremental backups, based only on changes to the site and/or database, (2) the backups are stored offsite, and (3) the restore functionality is fast and extremely reliable. I used VaultPress as well for a long time, but ran into a situation where it was unable to restore a backup and BlogVault saved the day.
Hello,
Thanks for sharing your insights. Have you tried Updraft Plus before in the past? I’m torn between BlogVault and Updraft Plus.
UDP has really nice integration with MainWP for client reporting but BV has more features overall.
By the way, I’m with Cloudways too and have auto daily backup set. Is it too much to have 3 backups?
I’ve used Updraft in the past, and it worked okay. It just didn’t have as many features (and MainWP has an extension for BlogVault as well, with some really good pricing for a large number of sites).
I don’t think you can ever have too many backups, personally. You never know when a server or hard drive might fail, a provider might shut down, etc. - and I can tell you from experience, when you need a backup restored, it doesn’t matter what you use as long as it can successfully get your site back online and quickly.
This is an amazing and useful post. All you have disclosed are TRUTHS! Some I wish I had known sooner. The great thing is I have never been hacked, and thanks to you, never will. I just moved to wpx from Bluehost and had such a difficult time.
One of my main domains (no site attached) was being squatted on in Liquid Web, by a Digital Marketer who tried to hold on to my domain without me knowing it. It’s too long to write out but I had the hardest time getting it back.
Now I will keep everything separate. I plan to put my email in G-suite this weekend! Best to you (I read a few of your articles and they’re all good!)
Hi, the site looks great!
I’m a beginner looking to only get a domain and professional email from your recommendation of Namecheap. What are your thoughts about getting email hosting from there as well or from a separate service like G Suite? Pros and cons?
Thank you!
I use Namecheap email and have been very pleased with it, but G Suite is a perfectly fine option as well. Google’s spam protection is definitely superior to every other service, so that’s something to consider!