GoDaddy is one of the largest registrars in the world, and plenty of our customers’ domains sit there. This article tells you what to look for in order to point such a domain at hosting with us.
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Before you touch anything: your e-mail moves too. Changing nameservers does not just change where the site points. It moves the whole zone, and mail is part of the zone. If your mailboxes live where the domain lives, or with any other service, they stop receiving a minute later. If the e-mail is to stay where it is, do not touch the nameservers: edit the zone instead and change only the record for the website. The difference between the two is right below.
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We do not describe GoDaddy screens, and that is deliberate. We hold no account there and their panel changes often. An out-of-date click path wastes your time and leads nowhere. What we give you instead are the words and the proof.
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What is particular to this one
| Particular |
What it means for you |
| Sells domains and hosting |
One account can hold both. Cancelling or changing their hosting does not change the domain, and changing the domain does not touch the hosting. Always confirm which of the two you are in. |
| Sells mailboxes too |
If you bought e-mail there, the domain’s MX records are theirs. Switching the nameservers to ours leaves those mailboxes with no MX and mail stops arriving. |
| Its own nameservers have a recognisable name |
When a domain uses GoDaddy DNS, its nameservers end in domaincontrol.com. That gives you a one-second test, below. |
| Many domains sit in somebody else’s account |
It is common for the domain to have been bought by the web designer or the agency, in their own account. Access is then theirs and not yours, and nobody can work around that. See who owns the domain. |
The one-second test: where your zone is right now
Before you open their panel, ask from outside. On Linux or macOS: dig NS yourcompany.com. On Windows: nslookup -type=ns yourcompany.com.
| What comes back |
What it means |
| Names ending in domaincontrol.com |
The zone is being read at GoDaddy. That is where records are edited, and where nameservers are changed. |
| Our four names |
The zone is already ours. From here on, records are edited in cPanel, and whatever is written at GoDaddy no longer counts. |
| Any other names |
There is a third party in the middle, which may be a CDN or another provider. That is where the zone lives, and that is where you have to work. |
Route A: everything moves here (nameservers)
This is the clean route, and it only applies if the e-mail moves too. In the domain panel, look for the word Nameservers. You will find a choice between using GoDaddy’s own nameservers and using another provider’s: you want the second. The word is usually Custom or something like it, and until you pick it the fields to type in do not appear.
Then type ours in, deleting the ones that were there: dns1.mozout.com dns2.mozout.com dns3.mozout.com dns4.mozout.com
From the moment this is done and confirmed, your zone is the cPanel one. The steps on our side are in pointing your domain to us.
Route B: only the site moves, the e-mail stays (zone)
If the mailboxes stay put, do not touch the nameservers. Leave the zone at GoDaddy and change only what points at the website. The word to look for is DNS, or Manage DNS, and what you get is a list of records.
| 1 |
Find your hosting IP address. It is in cPanel, and we will give it to you on a ticket. Do not guess it.
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| 2 |
Edit the A record for the bare domain. In the list, the bare domain is usually written @. Replace the address there with ours.
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| 3 |
Deal with www. Either a second A record with the same address, or a CNAME pointing at the bare domain. Either works; what does not work is leaving it pointing at the old host.
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| 4 |
Touch nothing else. The MX records, the SPF and DKIM TXT records and any verification records stay exactly as they are. Touch them and the mail stops.
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| 5 |
Check from outside: dig A yourcompany.com must return our address, and dig MX yourcompany.com must still return what it returned before.
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The certificate does not follow on its own. Once the A record points here, the site certificate is issued on our side, and only after the domain actually points here. Until then the browser shows a security warning. See I bought a certificate and it has not activated.
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After you save
Their panel showing the new value is not proof. The proof is the answer from outside. And the waiting time is set by the old TTL, not the new one: that is explained in how long DNS changes take to propagate.
If you still see the wrong place after that, run through how to check a domain DNS before opening a ticket: half the time the change was never saved.
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Tired of the domain being in one house and the hosting in another? A transfer puts everything in one panel and one invoice, and on most extensions it adds a year to the domain term. See how to transfer a domain to us.
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Tell us the domain and what you want to move. We will give you the exact value to type and check it with you.
Open a support ticket
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