Part 2: Editing Your DNS

Hey All,

Ok…back with you today to talk about domains, websites, and online related stuff. Actually I think today I’ll just finish up talking about the process that needs to be completed after you purchase your domain name and I’d also like to add some information that I forgot to mention in the last blog post.

What I forgot to mention last time is that when you purchase a domain name, do it from an independent registrar like godaddy.com. NEVER get a domain name as part of a hosting plan that you might sign up for.

To back up for a minute and explain, if you’ve researched different web hosting and hosting plans, you’ll notice that many of them offer you a free domain name with purchase of any of their hosting plans. Sounds good, right? Um…not so fast. In this case, “free” could wind up biting you in the butt.

Keep in mind that a hosting company has to buy a domain name just like you would.  They buy it from a registrar. But when they buy it for you, they generally buy it in their name. This makes you indebted to them forever.

What happens if you ever want to leave their hosting company for any reason? You could lose your domain name. They know this of course and that’s why they don’t mind buying your domain name for you (thereby providing it to your for “free”) because they know you’re probably not going to go anywhere.

Any idea what the overall cost to you would be if you lose your domain name? Not to mention the cost of having to change all of your marketing materials to eliminate your lost domain name and replace it with the new one you would have to get, how about when prospects and customers visit your website? Poof. They’ll see a “404 Not found” page. You literally lose your website traffic overnight. And how about if you had a top ranking? That’s business and jobs right down the drain or down the turlet as archie bunker would say. )

I can’t stress this enough. If you can’t spend $7.69 a year for your own domain name in YOUR name, then perhaps it’s time to rethink your investment philosophy.

Ok…now that we have that out of the way, I’ll continue on with what you need to do with your newly purchased domain name. I use godaddy.com to purchase my domain names, so below you’ll see screenshots showing the inside of my godaddy acct. But if your domains at a different registrar, they offer you the same ability to do what I’m going to show you.

Basically we’re going to “edit your dns”. So we are changing the nameservers in order for them to point to your webhost. This is how your website is seen online.

When you sign up for web hosting, they’ll provide you a primary and secondary name server. For example, if you sign up for hosting with my webhosting company at 5.88Webhosting.com, the nameservers that are issued to you are:
ns1.88webhosting.com
ns2.88webhosting.com

The first nameserver is “primary” and the 2nd nameserver is “Secondary”. Here’s how to do it:

Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3:

After a few minutes (sometimes longer), your domain name will fully propogate/resolve across the internet and your domain name will be pointed to your hosting company.

So that’s pretty much it for today. I realize that many of you reading this may already know all this domain name/dns stuff. So that’s super duper. But there are quite a few who don’t. But either way, stay tuned, more website/online stuff is coming up.

And if you need inexpensive web hosting for your website, give serious consideration to 5.88Webhosting.com. I put 5.88Webhosting.com together specifically to host the websites of window cleaners and other service business owners so it’s the perfect hosting package for your website. And it’s priced just right. Plus it’s backed up with my full support 7 days a week.

See ya soon.

Steve