Use Your Domain Names Anywhere

Finding a good hosting service and domain name can be two of the hardest things about starting a new site. Once you’ve got a solid hosting service, you can usually use it to host multiple sites. Case in point, both Techinch.com and Maybring.com both run on my same DreamHost account. Once you’ve got a good hosting service that’s running your sites stable, it’s usually quite simple to add another site.

But sometimes, your hosting service may not be the cheapest place to register domain names. Plus, if your hosting service did go bad, it’s a lot easier to move your data than your domain name. For these reasons and more, many people choose to register their domains from a domain registrars and host their sites at another hosting service. You can use this to take advantage of specials as well; Media Temple, for example, currently offers $5 .com domain name registrations to new customers, which is about half price of standard domain registration price.

So how do you get your domains working with your hosting service if you’re keeping everything separate? Here I’ll show you how to add your domain from Media Temple to a DreamHost account, and the steps should be very similar with other registrars and hosting services.

Change Your Domain’s Nameservers

First, you’ll need to change the nameservers on your domain. Login to your account at your registrar where you purchased your domain, and open your domain tools. Here you should find an option to edit the nameservers listed for your domain. This will let you point your domain to your existing hosting account so you can do something useful with your domain name.

[box type="info"]Want to learn more about nameservers? This Wikipedia article should help you out.

In your options to edit nameservers, you should find listings to enter 2-3 nameserver names. By default, these will be the nameservers for your registrar’s hosting, but you want to change them to your hosting account’s nameservers. So, in another tab or window, go to you hosting company’s site and find their nameservers, which should be listed under your account’s domain settings. If you can’t find their nameservers, contact their support team. Once you’ve got the name servers, enter them in the nameserver fields on your domain registrar. Below you can see my settings for DreamHost’s default nameservers.

[box type="info"]It can take up to 24-48 hours for your DNS nameservers settings to propagate, though often today it only takes a couple hours.

Add Your Domain to Your Hosting Service

Ok, so now your domain is pointing to your hosting service, so it’s time to add it to your account. Head over to your hosting service, and open your domain management panel. If you're using DreamHost, you'll see a Manage Domains link on the top left side of your hosting dashboard. From the domain page, select Add New Domain. Don't worry; you won't have to pull out your credit card. This is just to claim the domain that you've pointed to your hosting service and add it to your account.

Now, on the Add New Domain page, you'll have a number of options. If you're wanting to start a new site from this new domain, then enter it in the top field under Fully Hosted. You'll have the option to set which folder your site's data will be saved in, specify which user has access to the domain, and whether or not you want to add Google Apps to your domain.

Alternately, if you just want to redirect your new domain to a site you already have, scroll down and enter your domain under Redirect, then enter the domain you want to redirect the new address to. That's what I've currently done with my new domain below, until I have a new site started for it.

That’s all! Now your domain should be running on your new fully hosted site on your existing hosting account, or redirecting to your site. Either way, you’ll be able to keep your domains registered wherever works best for you, while taking advantage of hosting you already have. For me, it enabled me to get 2 domains cheaper than Dreamhost’s default registration cost and add them to my account without much hassle at all.

As far as the best hosting or domain registration service, I’m afraid I can’t give you any absolute recommendation. Media Temple is highly regarded among designers and bloggers, and I’ve seriously considered using them to host Techinch.com. They offer many more advanced hosting offerings than most hosting companies, so if your site is going Pro, they’re definitely an option to consider. Plus, their current special on $5 new .com registrations is a great deal if you’re got a new domain you’d like to snag. Then, DreamHost offers great shared hosting at a very reasonable price, with an amazingly responsive and actually helpful help team. Techinch.com has been hosted on Dreamhost for over half a year now, and has had around 98% uptime which is not too bad. At the end of the day, though, you’ll get different reports from everyone about different hosting companies. The great thing is, your domains can always be moved to the hosting provider you want even without transferring them!

Thoughts? @reply me on Twitter.