Another newbie question... I am sure you see these a lot. :D

I have purchased 2 domains through DotEasy (http://www.doteasy.com) merely due to price. Now that I have opened my eyes and see what other companies offer, I realize that I would be better off with a better service.

I am only allowed 20MB of space! A friend just registered with ReadyHosting and was allowed 500MB which is what I would really like to have.

I want to transfer my domain to another service but I am not sure which one would be best for me. While I do not have immediate plans for any use of MySQL, CGI, or ASP, a company that would allow me to utilize those features would be ideal.

I contacted ReadyHosting about transferring my domain, in which they will waive the $50 setup fee, however I will be responsible for the continued renewal of the domain itself, which is unknown to me since DotEasy handles that currently.

Can anyone provide me with advice on the best places to contact and what I should look for in terms of cost? I have a co-worker on DotEasy who would be interested in switching as well...

Thanks,
Json

I think most hosting companies allow now for free transfer of your name.
What this basically means is..you already have the domain name registered through doteasy, but now you are looking for hosting.
When you regitered your domain there you were probably supplied account info, so you will be able to manage and make changes to your domain name?
Once you find a host, all that will need to be done at doteasy is to go in and modify host DNS.
This is simple and most hosting co. will send you that info in their welcome letter, etc.

You need to realize that domain regsitration is entirely separate from domain hosting. The registrar DotEasy uses is overpriced. You can do much better and get great service through several others. Do a search on the forum and you can find several regsitrars mentioned, including 000domains,com.

You can also find recommendations for hosting companies, even more in the Advertising section.

Thanks for the advice...

I am aware that domain registration and hosting are two different animals. Not being the advanced user that some members of this forum are, I need to ask these simple questions to get started.

So lets say I select company ABC to handle my web hosting requirements. I own the domain, but according to some companies, transferring the domain means me picking up the yearly cost of the domain registration.

Are there services available that will allow the transfer of the domain who will also pay for the yearly domain registration fees?

From my experiance it's best to keep domain registration and renewal seperate from hosting. As nice as it might sound to only deal with one company. The minute you do that you give total control of your website to someone else and that is a scary thing.

It becomes very easy for hosts to take your domain hostage and not let you move to other hosts.

Jason, hosts will not really pick up the cost of your domain registration. Some hosts do offer this feature (especially if you prepay for a year or so) but you can be sure they have already figured the price in the bundle.

If cost is an issue for you, I would suggest you compare some prices of hosts that do offer the "free domain" and prices of those who don't, and see if you can save money by paying for the domain yourself.

In addition, like Dexter said, you surrender control to those companies if they pay and you might regret it later on.

Good luck.