I am going to cover a very basic topic today – How to connect your domain name to your new web hosting service. Even though this is a very easy to do, I still find a lot of people asking how to do it, or are still slightly confused between DNS forwarding vs Name servers.

Before I start, first find these two things:

1. The login information to the control panel your domain register provides you.
2. The name servers that your web hosting company provided you with. They will be in your welcome email more than likely.

OK so now login to your domain register’s website. Click the manage domain name link(or something similar) then click a link that says Change Name Servers(or something similar).

You will be presented with 2 text box areas. They might already have name servers in there – probably your domain register’s. What you will want to do is replace their name servers with the name servers provided by your web hosting company. Click Save.

The 24 Hour DNS Propagation Period

After your change your name servers, you typically need to wait 12-24 hours for the DNS changes to propagate world wide. During this time, you will notice that your domain name is still pointing to your domain register. This is OK. Just be patient, it will change. Once it is all settled, your domain name will now be pointed to your web host.

DNS forwarding vs Name Servers

I find that a lot of my clients simply forward their domain name to our web hosting servers via IP, rather than changing their domain name to our name servers. I personally wouldn’t recommend this, but it might be useful in some situations. For instance, with DNS forwarding, you do not have to wait for the 24 hour DNS propagation.

However, if your web host switches the web server’s main IP, it is likely that your site will go down and you will have no idea why.

What is the fastest you have ever seen a domain name propagate? The fastest I have seen is 4 hours…