How to Point Your Domain to Ultra Web Hosting: Nameservers and DNS

If you registered your domain somewhere else (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Squarespace, and so on) and you are moving your site to Ultra Web Hosting, you point that domain at us by changing its nameservers at your registrar. This guide walks through the whole cutover: how to find where your domain is registered, how to test your site here before you flip anything, the exact nameserver steps at the popular registrars, and how to keep your website and email online through the change.

01. Two Ways to Point a Domain

There are two ways to send a domain to your hosting account, and it helps to know which one you want before you start.

02. Find Where Your Domain Is Registered

You make the nameserver change at whichever company you registered the domain with, called the registrar. If you are not sure who that is, look it up.

1. Open our WHOIS Lookup tool and enter your domain.
2. Read the Registrar field. That is the company whose control panel you log in to (for example GoDaddy, Namecheap, or Squarespace Domains).
3. If you do not remember your login there, use that registrar's password-reset flow with the email address on the domain.

03. Test Your Site Here Before You Switch

Because DNS is the last thing you change, you can move all your files and databases onto your account and preview the result on our server while your live domain still points at the old host. You do this by telling just your own computer to resolve the domain to our IP, using the hosts file. Nobody else is affected.

First, find your server IP. It is in your welcome email, in the client area under your service details, and in cPanel on the right sidebar as the Shared IP Address.

Then add a line to your computer's hosts file:

203.0.113.10   yourdomain.com   www.yourdomain.com

• Windows: edit C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts as Administrator
• macOS or Linux: edit /etc/hosts with sudo

Replace 203.0.113.10 with your real server IP and yourdomain.com with your domain. Save the file, load your site in a browser, and you will see the copy on our server. When everything looks right, remove that line again and move on to the nameserver change. For the full site-move process, see our migration guide, article #463.

04. Option A: Change Your Nameservers

This is the recommended path. The steps differ slightly per registrar, but the shape is always the same:

1. Log in to your registrar (the company from Section 02).
2. Find your domain list and select the domain you are pointing.
3. Look for a Nameservers, DNS, or DNS Management setting.
4. Choose the option for custom or third-party nameservers (not the registrar's default or "parked" nameservers).
5. Remove the existing entries and enter ours:
   • ns1.ultranameservers.com
   • ns2.ultranameservers.com
   • ns3.ultranameservers.com
6. Save. That is the whole change.

05. Nameserver Steps at Popular Registrars

The exact menu wording changes as registrars redesign their dashboards, but here is where the nameserver setting lives at the ones our customers use most. In every case you are choosing custom nameservers and entering the three ultranameservers.com names from Section 04.

GoDaddy

1. Sign in and open My Products, then find your domain and click DNS (or the three-dot menu, then Manage DNS).
2. Scroll to the Nameservers section and click Change.
3. Choose I'll use my own nameservers (sometimes shown as "Enter my own nameservers").
4. Enter the three nameservers, remove any extras, and Save.

Namecheap

1. Sign in and open Domain List, then click Manage next to your domain.
2. On the Domain tab, find the Nameservers dropdown.
3. Change it from "Namecheap BasicDNS" to Custom DNS.
4. Enter the three nameservers in the boxes (click Add Nameserver for the third) and click the green checkmark to save.

Squarespace Domains (formerly Google Domains)

1. Sign in at the Squarespace domains dashboard and select your domain.
2. Open DNS, then find Nameservers.
3. Choose the option to use custom nameservers.
4. Enter the three nameservers and save.

Domains that used to live at Google Domains were migrated to Squarespace, so this is where they are managed now.

Cloudflare (as your registrar)

Cloudflare is a special case. If Cloudflare is only your DNS provider, you cannot change nameservers to point away from it while keeping the domain in Cloudflare; instead use Option B in Section 06 and update the A record inside Cloudflare. If Cloudflare is also your registrar, note that it does not allow fully custom nameservers on most plans, so Option B is again the right path. Our full Cloudflare walkthrough is article #295.

Network Solutions or Web.com

1. Sign in and open My Domain Names (or Account Manager), then select your domain.
2. Find Change Where Domain Points or Manage Nameservers.
3. Choose Custom nameservers and enter the three names.
4. Save and confirm.

Any Other Registrar

Log in, open the domain, and search the menus for Nameservers, DNS, or Name Server Settings. Switch from the default to custom or third-party nameservers, enter our three, and save. If you cannot find it, your registrar's help center will have a "change nameservers" article, or open a ticket with us and we will point you to the exact screen.

06. Option B: Keep DNS Elsewhere, Update the A Record

If you want to keep managing DNS at your current provider (most often because you use Cloudflare and want to keep its features), you do not change nameservers. Instead you point just the website's A record at our server.

1. Get your server IP from the client area service details or the cPanel Shared IP Address box.
2. In your DNS provider's dashboard, edit the A record for the root domain (shown as @ or the bare domain) and set its value to that IP.
3. Do the same for the www record: either an A record to the same IP, or a CNAME pointing www at your root domain.
4. Leave your MX and other records as needed for your email (see Section 08).
5. Save.

07. How Long DNS Takes to Propagate

DNS changes are not instant. After you save the nameserver or A-record change, it can take up to 24 to 48 hours for every network worldwide to pick it up, although most people see the switch within a few hours. During that window some visitors reach our server and some still reach the old one, depending on what their network has cached.

Watch the rollout with our tools rather than guessing:

• Look up the domain in our DNS Lookup tool and confirm the NS or A record now shows ours.
• Check reachability from multiple locations with upordown.ultrawebhosting.com.

Your own browser caches aggressively and can show the old site long after DNS itself has updated, so trust the lookup tools over what one browser displays. For the full explanation of caching, TTLs, and why a change looks slow, see article #130. If your domain still shows a parked or default page after the switch, article #131 covers that case.

08. Keeping Email Working During the Switch

Email is the part people forget, so plan it before you flip DNS.

• If you use Option A (nameservers) and you want email hosted here, create your email accounts in cPanel before the switch, so mail has somewhere to land the moment DNS points here.
• If your email stays with an external provider (Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, or your old host), make sure the correct MX records exist here after the switch, or set them at your DNS provider under Option B. Article #101 covers changing MX records.
• During propagation, a message can arrive at either the old or the new server depending on which DNS the sender saw. Keep both hosts active until propagation finishes so nothing is missed.

09. After the Switch: Verify and Get Your SSL

Once the lookup tools show your domain resolving to us, run through this short list:

1. Load the site at http://yourdomain.com and http://www.yourdomain.com and confirm both show your site, not a default page.
2. Send and receive a test email if your mail is hosted here.
3. Check your SSL. Our AutoSSL issues a free Let's Encrypt certificate automatically within a few hours of the domain pointing at us. Look in cPanel under SSL/TLS Status; if it has not issued yet, click Run AutoSSL.
4. Then, and only then, cancel the old hosting.

10. Troubleshooting and When to Open a Ticket

The issues we see most after a nameserver change, and what they mean:

• Nothing changed after 48 hours. Re-check the nameservers in our DNS Lookup tool. The most common cause is a typo (ultrawebhosting.com instead of ultranameservers.com) or a change saved on the wrong domain.
• Site loads but email stopped. The MX records did not follow. Confirm your mail accounts and MX records are set correctly here (Section 08, article #101).
• Still seeing the old site. Almost always browser or local caching. Confirm with the lookup tools from another network or your phone on mobile data.
• Domain shows a parked or "coming soon" page. The registrar's default nameservers are still in place, or a parked A record is overriding yours. See article #131.
• SSL warning. DNS has not finished propagating; wait, then run AutoSSL (Section 09).

Quick Recap

Pointing your domain to Ultra Web Hosting, start to finish:

1. Move your files and databases here first, then preview the site on our server with a hosts-file entry before you change anything.
2. Find your registrar with our WHOIS Lookup tool, and note the current nameservers.
3. Change the nameservers to ns1, ns2, and ns3.ultranameservers.com (Option A), or if you keep DNS elsewhere, repoint the A record to your server IP (Option B).
4. Plan email so your MX records land in the right place before you cut over.
5. Wait for propagation (a few hours, up to 24 to 48) and confirm with our DNS Lookup and up-or-down tools.
6. Verify the site and SSL, run AutoSSL if needed, and only then cancel your old hosting.

Last updated September 2026 · Browse all DNS articles