Make sure you control the destiny of your Web site - use different vendors for registration, hosting, and access.

With literally hundreds of vendors offering registration, hosting, access and even telephone services, there is a strong temptation to use a single vendor for everything.  It's very convenient in the short run, especially for billing and also for cost, but there can be problems down the road.

You should control your Web site. When one vendor provides all the services, you might find yourself with less control.

In a case close to home, one of my friends found that his hosting company had arbitrarily changed domain registrars without notifying him. Worse, the hosting company had further set the registration up in such a way that my friend, who thought he "owned" the domain, could not make any changes.

This was done in an attempt to lock in the single vendor as the provider of all the services. It took my friend quite a bit of time and effort to untangle that, all the while meeting with incredible resistance from the vendor.

Another company worked with a graphic designer who registered the company's site in the graphic designer's name, an outrageous breach. Just recently, a new client neglected to renew hosting on time, which caused loss of his primary domain name - hosting and registration had been linked.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket.