Domains + hosting
The boring
part.
Your address, the place your site lives, and the email that makes you look like a business. None of it is interesting. All of it takes you offline when it goes wrong.
This is where BlackCat started, and it is not where BlackCat ends.
For years this was the whole business: domains, hosting, professional email, and a real person on the other end instead of a support queue. It still runs, it still works, and clients still stay on it for years.
It is not the headline anymore, because it was never the point. The point was always that somebody was looking after it. That has not changed, it just has more around it now.
What it is
Five things, and you should not have to think about any of them.
The domain
Your address. Registered in your name, renewed on time, pointed wherever it needs to go.
The hosting
Where the site actually lives. Runs on GoDaddy infrastructure, which I resell as a partner.
Professional email
you@yourbusiness.com, set up on your phone and your laptop so it just works.
The certificate
The padlock. Without a current one, browsers actively warn people away from your site.
Backups
Real ones, so a bad update or a bad day costs you an afternoon rather than the whole site.
Being straight about it
You can buy every one of these yourself, for less.
GoDaddy, Namecheap, Bluehost and a dozen others will sell you all of it directly, today, cheaper than I will. That is true and I am not going to pretend otherwise.
Doing it yourself
Cheaper, and entirely doable
If you are comfortable with this stuff, buy it direct. You will save money and I would tell you the same thing on the phone.
- You choose the plan and the add-ons
- You handle renewals and expiry notices
- You set up email on every device
- Support is a queue, and you are in it
Having it handled
Costs more, and costs you nothing else
You are not paying me for server space. You are paying so that none of this is ever your problem again.
- I choose the plan, and skip the upsells you do not need
- Renewals happen before they lapse, without you
- Email set up and working on your devices
- Support is a person who already knows your setup
The actual job
What "handled" means on the days it matters.
Hosting is not a product you use. It is a set of things that go wrong occasionally, usually at the worst time.
The renewal nobody saw
A domain expires because the notice went to an email address the business stopped using in 2019. The site vanishes, and getting the name back is a race. This is the single most common way a small business loses its website.
The certificate that quietly lapsed
The site does not go down. It just starts showing visitors a full-page security warning, and you find out from a customer who assumed you had been hacked.
The move that broke the email
Hosting gets migrated and email goes with it by accident. Messages bounce for two days and nobody knows which ones. Email is moved separately and deliberately, because it costs more to get wrong than the website does.
The update that took the site down
A plugin updates itself, something conflicts, and the site shows an error instead of a homepage. With a backup, it is a fifteen minute fix. Without one, it is a rebuild.
The password nobody has
You need to change one line of text and discover that the only person with access left three years ago. Recovering an account you technically own can take weeks. I keep this documented so it never becomes your emergency.
Moving is
easier than
you think.
Most people put this off because they picture the site going dark and the email breaking. Neither has to happen. The new setup gets built alongside the old one and switched when it is ready, and email is moved as its own careful step.
You do not need to know your current logins to start. I can find out who your domain is registered with and where your site is hosted from the outside, and tell you what recovering access would involve before you commit to anything.
And the same promise as everywhere else: the domain stays in your name, and you can take it with you whenever you like.
Before you ask
The practical questions.
Do I have to host with you to work with you?
No. Plenty of clients keep hosting wherever it is. It is usually simpler and cheaper if it is all in one place, and I will explain why, but it is never a condition.
Who owns the domain?
You do. Registered in your name with your details, whoever pays the invoice. I manage it. I do not hold it.
What if I want to leave?
You get the logins and the domain transfer code, and I will help you hand it over cleanly. It should take an afternoon.
Will my email go down during a move?
No. Email is migrated deliberately and separately from the website, and it is the part I am most careful with.
Can you take over a site somebody else built?
Usually yes. I will look at it first and tell you honestly if it is built on something I cannot maintain, and what your options are.
Is this cheaper than doing it myself?
No, and I would be lying if I said it was. It is cheaper than one expired domain, one lost weekend, or one week of bounced email.
If you came here for hosting
You might actually need one of these.
Most people who land on this page are trying to solve a bigger problem and hosting is just the part they knew how to name.
Start a business
You have an idea and nothing else yet. The domain is one item on a short list, and I will tell you the rest of it.
Start a business → GrowGrow your business
You have a site and it has stopped doing its job. Moving the hosting will not fix that on its own.
Grow your business → PartnerOngoing support
You want somebody watching all of it, not just keeping the lights on. This is where hosting usually belongs.
Ongoing support →Start here
Tell me what
you have now.
Even if the answer is "a domain I bought once and cannot find." I will work out where everything lives and tell you what it would take to have it looked after properly.