How to point a domain name to your Websavers hosting account

There are two ways to point your domain to Websavers: 1) by updating your name servers, which moves the DNS hosting as well, or 2) by updating the individual DNS records and keeping your DNS hosting where it is now. Before we get into the details on how to make either of these options happen, a few tips:

• If you registered your domain with Websavers on the same order as your hosting plan, the domain will be automatically configured to point to your hosting and you shouldn’t need to complete the steps below.
• If you transferred your domain to Websavers the name servers will not automatically change to ours. See below to learn how to do this.
• If you have your own VPS look in the Client Centre under the VPS Settings to see if we have created name servers for you. If there are no name servers showing there, expand the section below for your options.

How to point your domain to Websavers by updating the Name Servers

This option switches your DNS hosting to Websavers.

We recommend this option because it’s simpler to understand Plesk’s DNS records than most other DNS hosting control panels. It’s also much easier to manage the domain in the future, if you ever wish to set up a subdomain or adjust DNS records because it’s all done in Plesk automatically. Additionally, we can help if you run into any problems when your DNS is hosted with us.

Make sure you’ve added your domain in Plesk.

If you wish to keep all services working exactly as they did prior to pointing the domain to Websavers (ex: mail delivery), you’ll need to visit the DNS configuration/settings/zones in the control panel where it is hosted now (usually either your registrar or your current host) and duplicate everything as closely as possible to the “DNS Settings” option under your account in Plesk. Read more here to learn how to add or adjust the DNS records in Plesk.

Once you have your DNS records configured as you like/need them in Plesk, follow the steps below to update your name servers.

If your domain is registered with Websavers:

1. Login to the Client Centre
2. Choose “Registered Domains” from the main menu
3. Select the domain you wish to adjust from the list
4. Look under the “Name Servers & DNS” section and choose “Manage my DNS records using my hosting plan or VPS and allow the control panel to automatically create necessary records for me.” then use the option directly below to select the hosting plan under which you will be hosting the domain.
5. Scroll down and click the Save Name Servers button to save your settings

If your domain is registered with another company:

1. Visit your registrar’s website, find the account login option and login to your account
2. Find your domain in the list of domains and click on it to configure it
3. Look for an option to change or update the Name Servers for this domain name. Only if you can’t find an option to change the name servers should you look for other terminology like possibly domain pointing or domain host (these are rare). Note: registering a name server is not the same thing. It is not likely that you will need to register a name server.
4. Once you’ve found the fields to update the name servers for the domain, enter the servers as shown for your hosting plan in our Client Centre. (Login and click “Settings” beside your hosting plan)

The new name servers may take effect immediately, but the change could also take as long as 48 hours to update everywhere in the world. Please be patient!

How to point your External DNS records to Websavers

This advanced option will ensure you keep the DNS records hosted wherever they are now – usually the registrar or 3rd party hosting company.

Note: If you run into DNS related problems while having your DNS hosted elsewhere, you will need to get help from the DNS host as we can’t provide guidance on using other company’s systems. If you’d like to be able to get more complete support for DNS from us, you should instead update your name servers using the steps above (prior section).

To use external DNS hosting when your website is hosted with us, you will need to login to your DNS host, identify the root DNS record, and change it to point to your hosting with us. Here’s how:

1. Obtain the NEW IP address that will be used to host the domain with Websavers. You’ll find this within Plesk.
2. Log in to your DNS host. This will either be your registrar or your web host. Navigate to their DNS record or zone management option.
3. Now we need to identify and update the Root DNS A record. The root DNS A record will be the one listed of type “A” where the subdomain/host/hostname field will either be blank or will contain root or the @ symbol. When you’ve identified the root A record, replace the IP it currently points to with your new IP address, found in step 1.
4. Using www: Look for a record with the ‘www’ subdomain specified. If it’s already a CNAME that points to the root domain (usually displays as yourdomain.com or @), then you’re all set – no changes are required for that record! However, if it’s an A record pointing to the old IP (ie: that you just changed for the root record), you’ll need to either change that record to the same IP as you did in the last step OR remove the A record with the www subdomain and add a new CNAME with subdomain www that points to the domain / root record (this is best).

IMPORTANT: Once you’ve made the necessary changes, and if you plan on using external DNS permanently (ie: you won’t be updating your name servers in the near future), click here to learn how to optimally configure Plesk while using external DNS.

How to know when the DNS changes are completed

If you haven’t transferring an existing website, you will know the update has propagated to your computer when you see the Websavers branded “Your website is ready for content” page.

If you have transferred an existing website and you want to test to be sure you’re seeing the site on the new server, create a test.txt file in the web root folder with something in it like “We’re live on Websavers!” and visit yourdomain.com/test.txt in your browser. If you see the welcome message, then you’re now reaching the website on your Websavers account, if not, then your local DNS hasn’t updated just yet. Give it a bit more time!