How do I buy a domain?

We have a few ideas of a name for my wife's business, and want to buy the domains. We have not searched for them yet, because I heard that if you search for it and it is available, the price goes up. But I do not understand any of this. So... what do I do? How do I do it? We are ready to pull the trigger right now. 

I use http://pairnic.com for mine.  Don't use godaddy and the simular as I've heard they do E36 M3ty stuff to lock you into them.

I've had good luck with gkg.net.  you should keep your hosting separate from your registrar.  IE don't go for a package deal.

+1 on not using godaddy.

I use both Hover and Porkbun - the latter is generally noticeably cheaper on .com domains than Hover. I'm happy with both. IIRC both also offer basic hosting and email. Can't comment on how good they are at it as I'm hosting on self-managed servers.

Note that you don't "buy" a domain, you only rent it from the registrar and it's a recurring annual cost.

In reply to mikeatrpi :

Agree on separating hosting and domains - especially avoid the "host with us and you get a free domain" type deals as people have had problems with them.

I use Google Domains to keep up with all of mine. 

I recently asked this question, and ended up using the general consensus (Hover.com to register it, pair.com to host).  Worked out pretty well.   Shamless plug: https://www.vector-mfg.com

Ok, I bought a domain from Hover. 

Now how do I host it with Pair? And which one do I get email through?

Following.

mtn said:

Ok, I bought a domain from Hover. 

Now how do I host it with Pair? And which one do I get email through?

If you follow my link above, you can see the settings you need to change on Hover & Pair to get things pointed where you need (they're screenshots from my phone, about 80% of the way down the thread).

I used Hover for my email, but one thing to note is that it's an IMAP server, not an Exchange server, so that means that if you use Outlook for your desktop & phone email, you can't save a calendar event on one and have it show up for the other.   If you're not using outlook, it's not a problem as you'd have that anyway.   Just an FYI.