Does anyone have any idea on linking a domain name (i.e. something.com) to a hosting server (e.g something like godaddy or dreamhost)?
The domain name and hosting plan are from different companies and the domain name was previously linked to another server.

Thanks for the help in advance

11/30/2009 8:17:35 PM

All you really need to know is the DNS info for the existing server host, and provide it to the domain registrar. Fin.

11/30/2009 8:35:44 PM

^yep.

11/30/2009 9:02:25 PM

you can do a domain transfer to move the domain name from one registrar to another if you want to. (e.g. move the domain from network solutions to godaddy)

Either way you will need to point the DNS A records to the ip address of the new host.

You do not need to have DNS hosting and web hosting with the same company.

So lets say http://www.yourdomain.com is pointing to Host A with Company A and yourdomain.com is currently registered with Company A. You have new hosting (Host B) with Company B. Company B also offeres domain registration. You must point the DNS records from Host A to Host B. The additional step of transfering the domain registration from Company A to company B is optional and will cost more. Its only really worth doing if Company B offeres you a discount on hosting if you move both services to them.

11/30/2009 9:10:46 PM

Once I change the server hosting the site, will there be any access to the previous server if I type in the site address in a browser?

11/30/2009 9:12:07 PM

Once you point the DNS records to the new host theres generally a propegation time as the ttl on the records expires.

e.g. If the current TTL on your www record for yourdomain.com is 60 minutes that means unless someone manually refreshes their dns cache, they will continue to point to the old host. Generally, most ISPs these days honor the TTL since the extra dns traffic isn't a huge deal. It is possible that some ISPs will ignore it and the result would be that some people might not resolve your domain to the new host for a while. In the past 25 hours was generally thought to be a good average time for propegation. Now days for most users you can expect it to use the TTL.

In order to make sure users get to the new site as fast as possible you should lower the TTL of the current DNS records down to something really small like a minute. Give that about an hour (or whatever the current TTL is) to propegate and then move the records to point to the new host.

Assuming the ISPs honor the low ttl (which is safe for the majority of ISPs these days) the traffic should start going to the new host after a minute or so.

Since there are no guarantees its possible users may still get pointed to the old host. To handle this situation you could either shut off the old host or put up a generic down for maintenence page. Users still resolving to the old host would get that message and come back later (hopefully when their DNS cache is cleared). Everyone else goes to the new host.

11/30/2009 9:23:46 PM

Probably, if you know the IP address of the old host server. Unless you close service with the old host immediately, you should still at least be able to get to the server via http://123.123.123.123 or whatever.

11/30/2009 9:23:48 PM