Namecheap is a registrar widely used by people buying international domains. This article tells you what to look for in their panel in order to point the 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 screens. We hold no account there, and a click path that no longer exists is worse than none at all. What we give you are the words to look for and the proof from outside, neither of which depends on how the panel looks this month.
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What is particular to this one
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What it means for you |
| Their own DNS has a name |
Their DNS service is called BasicDNS and its nameservers end in registrar-servers.com. If a dig NS returns that, the zone is being read at Namecheap. |
| There is a switch before the field |
While their own DNS is selected, there is nowhere to type our names. The words to look for are Custom DNS. This is the number one reason people say "the field does not appear". |
| The zone editor only counts while the DNS is theirs |
The moment the nameservers become ours, the records still written there stop being read by anyone. They are not deleted; they are ignored. Editing them afterwards is writing on a page nobody opens. |
| They sell mailboxes too |
If you bought e-mail there, the MX records are theirs. Switching nameservers leaves those mailboxes with no MX. |
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One typing mistake is expensive. We fix the same one too often: the switch is set to Custom DNS and the fields are left empty, because whoever filled them saved before typing, or deleted one without adding another. A domain with no nameservers at all raises no error: it simply goes off the air.
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Route A: everything moves here (nameservers)
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First confirm the e-mail can move. If the mailboxes are there or with another service, jump to route B, or move the e-mail on purpose and at a planned hour.
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Open the domain and look for the word Nameservers. You will see a choice between their own DNS and another provider’s nameservers.
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Pick Custom DNS. Only then do the fields to type in appear.
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Type ours in and delete the old ones. They are: dns1.mozout.com dns2.mozout.com dns3.mozout.com dns4.mozout.com
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Save, then check from outside with dig NS yourcompany.com. Until the answer is ours, it is not done.
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What happens next on our side is in pointing your domain to us.
Route B: only the site moves, the e-mail stays (zone)
You leave their DNS in charge and change one record inside it. The words to look for are Advanced DNS, or simply DNS, and what appears is the domain’s record list.
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Ask us for your hosting IP address, or read it in cPanel. Do not copy it from an article or from another domain.
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Change the A record for the bare domain (the name is written @) to that address.
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Change www as well, either as an A record with the same address or as a CNAME to the bare domain.
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Do not touch the MX or the TXT records. Those are what hold your mail and your domain verifications. See SPF, DKIM and DMARC.
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Delete whatever is left pointing at the old host. One forgotten record pointing at the previous provider makes the site look right on some machines and wrong on others.
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Many registrars, this one included, create a parking or redirect record by default, pointing at a page of their own. While that record is there it beats yours. Look through the list for anything pointing at an address you do not recognise, and remove it.
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Checking, which is the step nobody takes
Three commands give you the whole story: dig NS yourcompany.com says who is in charge, dig A yourcompany.com says where the site goes, dig MX yourcompany.com says where the mail goes. On Windows the equivalent is nslookup -type=ns yourcompany.com and so on.
To skip every cache and see our side of the truth straight away: dig @dns1.mozout.com A yourcompany.com. The rest of the waiting is explained in how long DNS changes take to propagate and in how to check a domain DNS.
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If you would rather we checked it with you before you save, tell us the domain and what you want to move.
Open a support ticket
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