If you have followed our previous lessons, by now you should have:

1. Your website’s domain name with Godaddy
2. Your hosting account with Hostgator

You should also have received a confirmation email from each company that your account is set up and ready to use. In these emails you will also find the settings for your new accounts.

Now you need to tell Godaddy that the files for your new website will be hosted at Hostgator.

It’s easily done in 2 steps:

First Step:

You have to find the ‘nameservers’ Hostgator gave you. The information about your nameservers should be in the confirmation email.

Nameservers usually look like this (your numbers will be different):

ns.123.hostgator.com
ns.124.hostgator.com

Second Step:

Now log into your Godaddy account, and navigate to Products/Domains/My Account/Domain Management.

The screen may look different than below, but you need to find the link ‘Domain Management’.

In the Domain Manager, select your domain. In your domain settings, look for the area where you can set your name servers. It may look like below:

Now click on ‘set nameservers’ and change them to the nameservers Hostgator gave you:

1. Select ‘I have specific nameservers for my domains‘
2. Type in the nameservers you got from Hostgator
3. Click ok

You’re done.

Now you will have to wait for a couple minutes to a couple hours until Godaddy and Hostgator have updated their databases. It might take up to 24 hours, but usually it is a matter of about 30 minutes.

You can check whether it’s done by typing your new website’s name in your Internet browser. When the nameservers are successfully changed you will see the default Apache website (‘Great success, Apache is working on your cpanel’), not the Godaddy ‘parked domain’ website anymore. You can then proceed to the next lesson and install WordPress.

Tutorial 'How To Make Your Own Website':

1. Lesson 1 – Overview: What Will You Learn In This Web Design Tutorial?
2. Lesson 2 – What Will I Need To Build My Website?
3. Lesson 3 – Naming Your Website: Find And Buy The Best Domain Name
4. Lesson 4 – Your Website Needs A Home: Getting Your Web Hosting Account
5. This article: Lesson 5 – Connecting Your Domain Name And Hosting Account: Set Your Nameservers
6. Lesson 6 – Installing WordPress: The Famous 3 Minutes Set Up Of Your Website
7. Lesson 7 – Optimizing Your Settings: Update And Get Ready For Google
8. Lesson 8 – Installing Plugins: Add More Functions
9. Lesson 9 – Make It Yours: Selecting Your Website’s Template
10. Lesson 10 – Adding Content: Posts, Pages, Menu, Sidebar

Related posts:

• Lesson 4 – Your Website Needs A Home: Getting Your Web Hosting Account
• Lesson 3 – Naming Your Website: Find And Buy The Best Domain Name
• Lesson 2 – What Will I Need To Build My Website?