How to Point Your Domain to InterProWebHost
You bought the domain. You bought the hosting. But when you type your domain into a browser, your website still does not appear. Nothing is broken. Your domain simply does not know where your hosting lives yet. By the end of this article, your domain will be pointed at your InterProWebHost hosting account and loading your website.
Here is the one analogy that makes this click. Your domain name is your street address. Your hosting account is your house. The domain name system, or DNS, is the postal service connecting the address to the house. Right now, the postal service is delivering visitors to the wrong house, or to no house at all. The fix is telling the postal service your new address instructions, which takes about five minutes of actual work.
What you need before you start
You need two things: access to your InterProWebHost client area, and access to the account where you bought your domain (that company is called your registrar). The domain does not have to be registered with InterProWebHost. You can keep it wherever it is and simply point it here.
Step 1: Find your nameservers
Log in to your InterProWebHost client area at interprowebhost.com/store/clientarea.php. Open My Services and click on your hosting plan. Scroll through the plan details until you see the nameservers. There will be two of them, and they look like ns1 followed by a domain name, and ns2 followed by a domain name. Copy both, exactly as shown.
These two lines are the new postal instructions for your domain. Everything after this is just delivering those instructions to the right place.
Step 2: Change the nameservers at your registrar
Now go to wherever you bought your domain. Open your domain’s settings and look for a section called nameservers, DNS management, or domain settings. Every registrar labels it slightly differently, but the option you want is usually worded as “use custom nameservers” or “use my own nameservers.” Select that option, paste in the two nameservers you copied from your client area, and save.
That is the entire change. You just told the internet that your street address now delivers to your InterProWebHost house. There is nothing to install and nothing else to configure on the hosting side.
Step 3: Wait for propagation, then verify
Nameserver changes need time to spread across the internet, a process called propagation. It often starts working within an hour, but it can take up to 48 hours for every visitor worldwide to reach the new location. During this window, some people may see the new site while others still see the old one. That is normal.
To verify, simply visit your domain in a browser. If your website loads, the change is working. If you want to check progress in detail, see How Long Does DNS Propagation Take.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Typos in the nameservers. Copy and paste them rather than typing them by hand. One wrong character sends your domain nowhere.
- Changing the wrong domain. If you own several domains, double check you are editing the one you intend to point.
- Expecting instant results everywhere. Your own computer may pick up the change quickly while a visitor in another country still sees the old location. Give it time before troubleshooting.
- Pointing the domain before the hosting is ready. Make sure your hosting plan is active first. If you are moving an existing site, read Moving Your Website: The 5 Checks That Matter before you switch.
What if you want to keep your DNS where it is?
Changing nameservers hands all of your DNS management to your hosting account. If you would rather keep managing DNS at your registrar or with another provider, you can point just your website using an A record instead. See Nameservers vs A Records: Which Should You Use to decide which approach fits your situation.
Still stuck? Open a support ticket and tell us your domain name and where it is registered. We will point you in the right direction.