Your domain is registered at one company and your hosting is at another. They need to be connected before your site will appear when someone types your domain. There are two ways to do it: changing nameservers, or updating an A record. This guide explains both methods clearly, with real examples, so you can pick the right approach for your situation.
Your domain name is just a label. DNS records at your domain registrar (or nameservers) tell browsers which server to contact when someone requests your domain. There's nothing connecting your domain registration to your hosting by default, you have to add that connection through DNS.
You have two options: change the nameservers (delegates all DNS management to your host) or update the A record only (keeps DNS at your registrar but points the domain's IP to your server). Each approach has trade-offs. The right one depends on where you're managing email and whether you want all DNS in one place.
Changing nameservers is the cleanest approach. It transfers full DNS authority to your hosting provider, so all records (web, email, subdomains) are managed from one place: your hosting control panel.
Your hosting provider will give you two nameserver addresses. For HostBible, these are:
Log in to your registrar, go to the domain's nameserver settings, switch to "custom nameservers", and enter these values. Remove any previously listed nameservers and save.
Best when: you're moving everything (website and email) to HostBible, or you want a single DNS management interface.
Trade-off: if you have custom DNS records at your registrar (email, third-party services), you'll need to recreate them at HostBible before making the switch. Document all existing records first.
If you want to keep DNS management at your registrar, most commonly to preserve email records you've already configured, you can update just the A record for your domain. This points only the website at your new server without changing anything else.
You'll need your hosting server's IP address. In your HostBible control panel, this is shown on the hosting account details page. Then in your registrar's DNS settings, find or create an A record:
You'll also want to update or add a matching record for www. You can either add a second A record pointing www to the same IP, or a CNAME record pointing www to your bare domain:
Best when: your email is handled by a third-party service (Google Workspace, Microsoft 365) and you don't want to touch the MX or TXT records.
Trade-off: DNS is split between two systems (registrar and hosting), which can cause confusion when troubleshooting later.
If you're starting fresh with a new site, use nameservers. It's simpler and puts everything in one place. If you have existing email through Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 that's already working, and you only need to move the website, updating the A record is quicker and avoids touching your email configuration.
If you're unsure, contact HostBible support before making changes. We can check what's currently configured and advise the safest approach for your situation.
Export or note down all your existing DNS records before making changes. Log in to your current DNS provider and copy:
If changing nameservers, recreate all of these at HostBible before switching. Email will stop working immediately if MX records are missing after the nameserver change.
DNS changes propagate globally as cached records expire. Most visitors see the change within a few hours. The full range is roughly:
To reduce propagation time, lower your TTL to 300 seconds (5 minutes) a day before making the change. Then, after the change, most resolvers will pick up the new records within minutes rather than hours. Once the migration is confirmed, raise the TTL back to 3600.
During propagation, some visitors will be served by the old server and some by the new one. This is normal and unavoidable. Plan DNS changes for low-traffic periods, and ensure the site is fully set up on the new server before you cut over.
Use our DNS Propagation Checker to check propagation globally. Enter your domain and select the A record type. Once most global locations show your new server's IP, the change is propagated.
From the command line, you can query a specific resolver to bypass your local cache:
nslookup yourdomain.com 8.8.8.8
If this returns your new server's IP, Google's resolver has the new record. If your browser still shows the old site, flush your local DNS cache and clear your browser cache.
Register your domain directly through HostBible and skip the DNS configuration entirely, your domain and hosting are connected automatically from day one.
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