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How to change your DNS configuration in 4 steps
It is important to know how to change your DNS configuration if you choose a hosting company that is different than the company where you purchased your domain name. Your domain name, which is your “online real estate address”, needs to be linked to your hosting account servers before your website can be uploaded and displayed online. This is referred to as pointing your domain to your hosting company.
To do this it is necessary to change the DNS (Domain Name System) setup at the company where you purchased the domain name, to the hosting platform you have chosen. This involves changing the nameservers on the domain registrar site.
This is very simple to do and is often presented as being more complicated than it is. For this example, we will use screenshots from two of the more popular domain and hosting companies: GoDaddy and Hostgator
How to change your DNS configuration by changing the nameservers:
Using the GoDaddy website these steps will illustrate how to point your domain name to a hosting company by changing the nameservers. Once the nameservers are changed, after a few minutes, the hosting company you are using will be set to connect the domain name on their platform.
- Find your product at your domain registrar
- Click on the option to change the DNS configuration for the domain
- Insert nameservers from your hosting company
- In your hosting company cPanel go to addon domains and link the domain to the hosting platform.
Select “my products” from the GoDaddy dropdown menu.
On your products page, scroll down and click DNS for the domain name you have purchased
You will be given the opportunity to click on change the DNS configuration of your domain name.
At this point, you will be asked to enter the new nameservers of your web hosting company.
At this point, you will want to sign into the HostGator website and click on the cPanel option.
Once in the cPanel click on the addon domains:
Your domain will be seen in the list of addon domains. The next step in the following post will be to connect the domain to the hosting platform.
Once your domain has been pointed to your hosting platform you can host the domain online and do a one-click install of your WordPress website. Hope this has been helpful with explaining how to change your DNS configuration
Glossary
DOMAIN NAME:
The Domain Name System (DNS) is the hierarchical and decentralized naming system used to identify computers, services, and other resources reachable through the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. Courtesy of Wikipedia
CPANEL:
This is a web hosting control panel software developed by cPanel, LLC. It provides a graphical interface (GUI) and automation tools designed to simplify the process of hosting a website to the website owner or the “end-user”. Courtesy 0f Wikipedia