Setting up name servers - Pointing domain name to hosting server

In this tutorial we will learn to point domain name to hosting server.

So in the last tutorial Getting a domain and hosting plan for your website we learned about domain name registrars and hosting service providers and how to get a domain and hosting plan. Now its time to point (connect) the domain name and hosting server.

Nameservers

A nameserver basically translate the domain name to an IP address. The nameserver will be provided by the hosting company. So when a user types the domain name like www.example.com the nameserver will translate the domain name to an IP address and will fetch the website data from the server where it is hosted.

Example:

Lets say we bought a hosting plan from HostGator. So they are our hosting provider. And lets say we bought the domain name from GoDaddy. So they are our registrar.

Once we successfully get our hosting account from HostGator we will get 2 nameservers like the following from them.

ns1.nameserver.com
ns2.nameserver.com

The above two nameservers are just examples and nameserver will get replaced by the actual value provided by the hosting provider.

Domain name gets two nameservers. The first server is the primary sever while the second acts as a backup server.

So, lets say we get the following two nameservers from HostGator, our hosting provider.

ns1.hostgatornamesever.net
ns2.hostgatornamesever.net

We will take these two nameservers and add them to the domain name DNS settings. For this we go to GoDaddy, our registrar.

Saving the Nameserver

Login to your GoDaddy account or any other account from where you bought the domain name.

Once logged in go to the DNS (Domain Name System) settings of the domain name.

Example:

Lets say we bought example.com domain name so we will go to the DNS settings of that domain name.

In the DNS go to the Nameservers section and add the two nameservers provided by the hosting provider i.e. HostGator and save.

Example:

Propagation time

After successfully setting the nameservers of the hosting provider and domain name in the DNS settings we enter into the propagation time.

When we update the DNS (Domain Name System) records it can take up to 48 to 72 hours to propagate throughout the Internet. During this time period our website goes offline.