When you buy a new domain name you will often have the chance to set up hosting for it at the same time.
Should you do this, or look for hosting elsewhere?
Some web site owners like to have their domains and hosting all in one place, so that they only need to learn one interface for everything, and have one login for all their domain and hosting needs. In addition, you can often save money on the domain, or get the registration free if you buy hosting for it at the same time.
Other website owners, on the other hand, prefer to have their domain registrations and hosting separate. In the past, there was good reason for this. Some cheap hosting services offered prices, storage and bandwidth which were basically unsustainable. When the hosting service went out of business, and they had registered your domain for you, it was a lot of trouble to retrieve ownership of the domain. (This happened to me with a dismal hosting company called Host XL Inc. However, there are not so many ‘cowboy’ hosting companies operating now, so this is less of an issue.
If you have plans to build your websites into a full-time business, you should really spread the sites around various hosts. This means if one host suffers a disaster, or is down for long periods, your business and income is not completely gone.
So the answer to the question ‘should I buy hosting with my new domain name?’ is – follow your preference, but never have all your sites on the same host.