You’ve just purchased a brand new domain name. Now what? You’ll need a hosting account where you can store all your website files. If you’ve already got both of these necessary components, the next step is to set the nameservers for your domain name. I purchase and manage all of my domain names through GoDaddy so I’ll be using them as my example.

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They’re certainly not the only game in town so there’s plenty of other places to go to order your domain name. They’re just the biggest. Here’s a list of the top domain name registrars by market share and domain name count if you’re interested. Where ever you go, you’ll just have to familiarize yourself with their site and figure out where to go to set the nameservers.

Here’s the steps I take to set nameservers over at GoDaddy. You probably would never have guessed this first step in a million years, but I’ll tell you anyway.

Step 1: Log in.

Step 2: Click “Manage”.

Step 3: Select your domain by clicking on it, then click “Nameservers”.

Step 4: If your hosting account is not at GoDaddy like mine, here is where you would select “I host my domains with another provider” and then add a minimum of two nameservers.

So where do you find what nameservers you should be using? To find the correct nameservers, you would need to find out from your hosting provider. This is why I like HostGator because they list the nameservers in the left hand menu of your cpanel account.

I’ve used some other hosts that don’t make it as easy, so depending on where you go for hosting, you may have to hunt around the site a bit to find the appropriate nameservers if they’re not included in your welcome email.