In order to run a website, you require 2 components – a domain and a hosting account. Generally, most of the businesses, they purchase a domain and hosting plan with the same provider. However, if your domain is registered with a different company, other than your hosting provider, you need to point your domain using nameservers.
The process is simple and can be summarized as follow:-
- Generate nameservers from your hosting account
- Add those nameservers on your domain providers platform
To give you a better understand, we will take 2 widely used platforms as an example. Let’s say you have registered your domain with WHOIS and purchased GoDaddy’s hosting plan. Here is how you can point your domain from WHOIS to GoDaddy hosting account.
How to connect your domain name from WHOIS to GoDaddy hosting account?
If your domain is registered under WHOIS and your hosting service is with GoDaddy, you’ll need to add your GoDaddy’s names ever to WHOIS platform. Here is how to do it,
On GoDaddy Platform:
- Log into your GoDaddy account
- Click on My Products
- Click on Manage All next to Domains
- From the drop-down menu click on DNS
- Click on Add DNS Hosting
- Enter the domain name (that you’ve registered on WHOIS)
- Click on Next
- The system will generate nameserver for you
On WHOIS Platform:
- Log into your WHOIS account
- Go to your control panel
- Enter your registered domain name to go to Order Information
- Click on Nameservers
- Copy new nameservers from GoDaddy and paste it into WHOIS. Copy and paste both nameservers from GoDaddy
That’s it. Usually, it takes 1-2 hours to get your website up and running but according to GoDaddy sometimes it can take up to 48 hours. So keep your fingers crossed and check back in a while.