What Is a Nameserver? And How Do You Change it on Your WordPress Site? - Paragon Themes
What Is a Nameserver? And How Do You Change it on Your WordPress Site?

Nameservers allow users to use the domain names for identifying, remembering, and to bookmark a site. Your users achieve the ease as no mental effort must remember numbers that form your IP address. If you are a WordPress user and use WordPress themes, then you must grasp its purpose. 

Introduction to Nameserver and its working

The Nameserver is a part of the Domain Name System (DNS). It helps the browser resolve domain names to IP addresses as the DNS is an extensive database containing information about domain names and related IP addresses. 

The nameservers use DNS records of familiar names into numbers that a browser can understand.

Take an example; if you visit a webpage, you will generally insert a URL such as paragonthemes.com. Meanwhile, the IP address linked with this site will look like 186.50.222.352.

You will have to remember these complex numbers for every site, of course, without nameservers. The browsers we use can identify the IP address and take us to the desired website. If you typed paragonthemes.com in your browser, it would consult the Nameserver for our domain and take the IP address to allow you access to this site.

Causes to change your Nameserver

Usually, you might ever give a second thought to your nameservers. Meanwhile, when it comes to your website’s management, several tasks require you to interact with your Nameserver. For example, the Google Search Console verifies your domain using nameservers

As a whole, we have covered the three main scenarios when you may need to change a nameserver entirely. 

  • If you wish to set up a custom nameserver.
  • In case your domain is registered with a different company from the one which hosts the website, you want it to point. 
  • If you’re going to move your website to a new hosting provider.

Custom nameservers are linkable with the domain instead of your web host. So using custom nameservers simplifies the task of switching host providers.

Apart from the first situation, you will have to change your Nameserver, so the search engine points to the correct address. Otherwise, visitors who insert your site’s domain into the browsers won’t get your content. 

The browsers won’t get directed to the valid IP address and shows you errors like 502 bad gateway error and 508 error code.

If you are using a dedicated server or a Virtual Private Server (VPS), you may have to create a different nameserver. Using a custom domain-name can also help you for hosting resellers to avoid information leakage to the clients.

It can be useful to solidify your site identity by making your nameservers for matching the domain. 

Changing Nameservers

There are two techniques to change your Nameserver. You can switch to the host-provided ones, or you can compose a new custom nameserver. 

Changing current Nameservers

Suppose you are looking to switch hosts or a different company from another hosting provider to register your domain name. In that case, you will have to alter your nameservers to direct your domain to your website.

You can accomplish this task using your hosting or the domain registrar account feature. Exact steps depend on the company you are working on, but the general instructions would be quite similar.

Firstly, you will have to access the new nameservers that you want to get. Following are the few locations where you can find them :

  • The hosting account dashboard.
  • Documentation of your host.
  • The post-purchase email of your hosting provider. 

Probably, there will be two or more nameservers there; note all of them.

Then you will have to log into the account that registered your domain. Go to the domain management screen to fetch the address in question and then look for nameserver settings or DNS.

Then you should get the page where you have to insert the nameservers you sourced from a hosting provider.  

Bonos-de-casino.com just changed their nameserver and the results have been above and beyond.

Configuring custom Nameservers

If you want to set up VPS or dedicated hosting, you will be required to compose custom nameservers instead of only switching to the default ones.

First of all, log in to your hosting account and then find your server’s IP address. Note it for later. 

Now, go to the account that has your registered domain name. Select the address and go to DNS settings. Then search for an option to add or register a nameserver. 

Your IP address will be required here, along with the custom nameservers you want to add. For a domain like paragonthemes.com, these may contain ns1.paragonthemes.com

Final Word

Nameservers are an appropriate tool that saves users from remembering IP addresses for one or more websites. Moreover, you may have to change your nameservers sometimes while managing your website. You can follow this blog post to do so. 

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