I am going to start this page with a stark WARNING
With all hosting and domain name packages you get what you pay for. Be very wary of accepting any package that offers a free domain name with their hosting. Let me recount a short tale.
I signed up for a hosting account with Yahoo. You think you would be safe with someone like that wouldn't you?
Not at all. I foolishly signed up for a package that included a domain name. When I later decided to change my hosting account I did not think anything about the domain name. I was changing the hosting because many companies were now cheaper and offering more for your money than Yahoo.
So I changed my hosting changed the DNS to my site and thought nothing more about it until all of a sudden my domain name was no longer under my control.
Why, you may ask? Well of course the domain name was registered to Yahoo and because I had not transferred the domain name to a new provider before I cancelled my Yahoo hosting account I was never informed when the payment was due.
I contacted Yahoo and the registered domain name provider but all to no avail. They did not even bother to reply to my email. As a consequence Yahoo Hosting and Melbourne IT (the domain name providers) joined my blacklist of companies not to deal with. Oh well you learn by your mistakes.
Imagine my surprise when out of the blue I get an email offering to sell me my domain name. I am now getting the distinct impression that there is a nice little scam going on here. Yahoo Hosting lock my DNS so I cant get in to transfer my domain name to a reputable company, and then they let the registration lapse so Melbourne IT can sell it on. Then this new company come on the scene offering to sell me my own intellectual property for $297 telling me most companies charge more to catch expiring domains.
Sorry but I did not ask them to catch it and I am certainly not getting caught up in what could be a very lucrative scam. So be warned even the big guys will have you over if they can. I cannot recommend Yahoo for hosting or Melbourne IT for domain name registration. I would also recommend you use different companies for domain registration and hosting.
End of rant!
So that over and done with who would I recommend?
With your domain name I would recommend either Namecheap or Godaddy. They are both well priced within the domain name market. I generally use Namecheap because I have found they stick to their name offering some of the best bargains and they are also reliable.
With regards to hosting then HostGator must be one of the favourites with plans starting at less than $5 per month. If you want something a little better then I would recommend D9 Hosting. This is where I have all my sites at the moment