Does Squarespace Host Domains?

Yes, Squarespace hosts domains as well. Squarespace is a platform that allows you to create your own website easily for your business or personal endeavors. Websites, and everything that comes with them, can be hard to construct on your own without an IT degree. 

You may be wondering what domain hosting is or even what Squarespace is. In this article, we will discuss Squarespace, domain hosting, and more so that you can get your business or personal endeavor online as quickly and efficiently as possible.

What is Squarespace?

Squarespace is a website builder that allows people without IT skills to create websites easily, to support their business or any endeavor. No coding or boring web stuff, just creatively building a website how you want it. Launched in 2003, they used just to host blogs, but now they have evolved into something much bigger.

Not only do they allow you to design and create websites easily, but they also can deal with all the nasty and boring website stuff in the background, such as web hosting, domain management, redirection, search engine optimization, and much more.

If you are looking to quickly and easily make an efficient website that is up and running efficiently and quickly, Squarespace can do it all.

What Is Web Hosting? 

First things first, we need to understand what web hosting is, and this can also enlighten us as to what Squarespace actually does too. 

Pre-script, Squarespace is a platform that allows you to create websites easily. Creating a website might not seem that hard, but Squarespace also deals with all the nitty and gritty web stuff that can be outside most people’s reach. One thing that Squarespace does is web hosting. 

If you have a website with Squarespace, you can consider them your web host. Like if you rent a house, the landlord is allowing you to use their space to live or perhaps to run a business. This is what Squarespace does; it owns the space that you use to display everything on your website.

So Squarespace does more than just help you make a website; they host the space on the internet you use to show your content. Each Squarespace site is stored on its own specific servers, so they are physically and digitally web hosting here. 

For a more in-depth look at web hosting, read our other article What is Web Hosting and How Does it Work?

What Is Domain Hosting?

A domain name is completely unique to each website; for example, only Squarespace will own the squarespace.com domain name. A domain name is an intelligible form of an IP address, a series of numbers that are harder for humans to remember than a domain name.

In conjunction with your URL, this is how people find your website.

While you could theoretically own your domain outright, most web creators and business people will register their domain names through a third-party domain host.

One example of this is GoDaddy, which you undoubtedly would have seen before; they also buy up smaller domain names and facilitate their sale.

If you have a domain registered through a third-party provider like GoDaddy, they are your domain host, and you manage your domain alongside them.

By managing them, GoDaddy will use your DNS records (domain name system) to connect your domain name with email, other websites, and other web services you may need. A domain host will store all your data for you, which is necessary.

Does Squarespace Also Host Domains?

Yes, Squarespace does host domains. When creating a Squarespace website, you are automatically given a domain and can change the domain name. Yet, this domain is hosted through Squarespace, meaning that you get a built-in domain instead.

A built-in domain is different from a custom domain. A custom domain is something like “amazon.com” where they own the domain name outright.

A built-in domain is what you get with Squarespace that will look something like “yourdomainname.squarespace.com,” and it will come up like this in the search bar.

If you have a custom domain already as well as a built-in domain with Squarespace, they won’t direct to each other automatically. This said you can manage multiple domains through Squarespace.

With paid Squarespace plans, you can theoretically register multiple domains. For example, you might have already registered “domainname.com” but also want to register “domain-name.com” and “d0mainname.com”; for example, this can cost a small fee.

What If I Already Have A Custom Domain?

Let’s say you already had a custom domain name before you bought your Squarespace plan. You can also transfer a domain you have already purchased with a third-party provider to Squarespace. 

You would need to check if your custom domain is eligible to be transferred or not, which you can check with your third-party provider, but you also need to make sure that the registration is up to date and not overdue.

For instance, you can’t register a domain that has nine or more years remaining on the current registration, as this would be a lot for Squarespace to buy out. 

If you don’t want to pay money, you can connect your Squarespace built-in domain to your third-party domain, which is called domain mapping. Your domain will remain registered with the domain host you have, such as GoDaddy, but it connects to the Squarespace site.

This means the traffic from your domain registered outside Squarespace can still go to your Squarespace Site.

Conclusion

Yes, Squarespace does domain hosting, albeit in specific packages on their website, which you can visit for more information.

Not only does Squarespace allow you to create a website and host your domain easily, but they also host your website and are your one-stop service for getting a website up and running quickly. 

If you want all your website’s specifics to be managed and run by a third party you pay and trust, there really is no better place to look than Squarespace.