How to Point a Domain Name to Your Website (Or What to Do After Buying Your Domain Name)
You Already Have a Domain Name
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Since the people asking this question have already bought their own
domain name, I will proceed on that assumption. If this is not true for
you,
please read the article How to Register Your Own Domain Name
to find out how you can go about getting your own domain.
You Already Have a Web Hosting Account
- If you don't have a web host, you'll need to sign up for one before you can point your domain anywhere. For this article to be relevant, your web host must allow you to use your own domain name for your site, which is the case for all commercial web hosts (as far as I know). Those wondering which web host I use myself may read my WhichWeb Host Do You Recommend? page.
Steps to Associating Your Domain Name with Your Website
Get Your Web Host's Name Servers
The first thing you'll need to do is to find out the list of name servers used by your web host.
"Name servers", or "DNS servers", loosely speaking, are the things that will translate
your domain name to the actual location of your website. A little example will make this clear. Let's say you type a
domain like "gastd.blogspot.com" into your web browser. In order to display the website associated with gastd.blogspot.com,
the browser needs to know the real address of the site. Appearances to the contrary, the Internet does not actually use
names for addresses, but series of numbers, like
The easiest (though not necessarily fastest) way to find out the name
servers used by your web host for your domain is to ask them.
A faster way is to look for the information yourself in either the email
sent to you by your host when you first signed up with them, or from
the documentation on your web host's site. If you have no idea where to
get the information, contact your web host and ask them
for the "DNS servers" or "name servers" to use for your domain.
127.0.0.1, called IP addresses. Name servers translate
the domain name you and I use to the actual numeric IP address used by the machines on the Internet.
When you sign up with a commercial web host, they will configure their
name servers so that it will furnish your website's real IP
address when there is a query for your domain name. As such, in order
for your domain to be found on the Internet, you must link your
domain to your web host's name servers.
(There's a bit more to this than that, but I'm sure you're not here for a
long boring technical lecture on how things operate on the Internet.
Suffice it to say, in order for your domain name to resolve, a lot of
different name servers are involved, including your Internet provider's
name servers, your registrar's name servers, your web host's name
servers, etc. Don't worry. Much of it is automatic. All you need to do
to
make it all work is given below.)
The list of name servers will often look like
ns1.example.com, ns2.example.com, and so on, where
"example.com" will probably be replaced by some other domain name used by your web host for their servers.
Your web host may give you 2 or more name server addresses. Note down
all these names. Better still, keep the email or web page containing
these names open on your computer so that you can cut and paste them
later. You'll need to enter these names, exactly as given, into your
registrar's system.
Enter the Name servers into Your Registrar's Settings for you domain
Once you have the list of name servers, go to your domain nameregistrar and log into their system. You will obviously need the login name and password that you created when you first registered your domain.
Once logged in, you will need to look for some option to either set your
domain's name servers or change them. Every registrar has a
different way of doing this, and there is no standard method, so it's
not possible for me to give you a detailed blow-by-blow account of
how to get to the appropriate screen. (Even if I did, my description
will quickly become out-of-date since registrars, like all webmasters,
change their site design every now and then.)
What I'll do instead is give you some idea of what to look for.
In general, try the following to get to the page on your registrar's site that lets you modify the name servers:
- Find a way to list all your domains in the registrar's site. Sometimes this can be found in a "My Domains" page, or a "Domain Manager" page, or something similarly named.
- Select the domains for which you want to set the name servers. Sometimes this involves checking a box beside your domain name in the list of names. Alternatively, if you only have one domain name, you may even be able to click the domain name to get to the settings screen.
- Some registrars have a "Manage DNS" menu link, or a "DNS" button, or a "Nameservers" button. If you see such a link or button, that's probably the one that you will need to click. Basically look for things that say "DNS" or "Name Servers" or "Nameservers", whether to "set" it or "change" it, or "manage" it or some other thing.
Once you manage to find the correct page to change your name servers,
you will probably see a form that lets you enter things
like your "Primary Name Server", "Secondary Name Server", "Tertiary Name
Server" and maybe even more (like a fourth, fifth and sixth name
server as well). The exact words used may not be the same, but it should
mean basically your first name server, second name server, and
so on.
Put your first name server from your list, usually the name beginning with "
ns1", into the "Primary Name Server" field. Then type
your second name server, the name beginning with "ns2",
into the "Secondary Name Server" field. And so on. A domain name should
have
at least 2 name servers associated with it. Some web hosts give you
more, others only 2. Some registrars allow you to enter up
to 6 names, others only 2. If you only have 2 nameservers to enter, but
your registrar gives you 6 fields, just enter the first 2 and leave
the other fields blank. If you have 3 nameservers to enter, but your
registrar only allows you to enter 2, just enter the 2. Don't
worry about the fields you didn't get to use, or the extra name servers
that your web host provided that you couldn't enter.
Your domain will work fine without those extras. They are there to
provide a bit of redundancy, so that your site will still work if the
first name server fails.
If you cannot find the place to set your name servers, or you don't want
to just blunder around the registrar's website looking for
the correct option to try, look for the "Help" or "FAQ" documentation on
your registrar's site. This is such a basic procedure
that everyone needs to do that they are likely to have some sort of
guide on their site, if only to avoid having to answer the same question
over and over again from their customers.
At worst, if you are completely lost, and dare not poke around in the
registrar's site because you're afraid you'll change something you
shouldn't,
write to the registrar to ask them for help. Don't expect a fast reply
though. Some of them take days to reply, and often only to point you to
the relevant documentation on their site. As is the case for many other
things, if you want something done fast, you'll need to figure it
out yourself. Hopefully the tips in this section will give you enough
information so that you know what links/buttons to look for and click.
Once you've set your name servers, you're done. Yes, you read that
right. That's all there is to it. You'll have to wait a bit, though,
before you can access your website using your domain name. Just because
you set it at your registrar level doesn't mean that
the rest of the Internet knows your domain has a new address. It takes a
while, sometimes up to 2 or more days for every machine in the
world to catch up with the changes.
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