Knowledgebase

Creating and Using Custom Name servers

What are custom name servers?

Custom name servers, also known as host servers, are name servers that are based on your domain name:
ns1.yourdomain.com
ns2.yourdomain.com
ns3.yourdomain.com
etc...


How can I setup custom name servers?

Custom name servers are setup with your domain registrar. All registrars have different processes for creating custom name servers and we have created tutorials for all the major registrars.
Please click on the link corresponding to your registrar to learn how to create custom name servers with that particular registrar. If they are not listed below please contact your registrar  support department.

Enom.com
Godaddy.com
NetworkSolutions.com

Notes:

-Please make sure not to point your domain to custom name servers before having created them. Doing so will result in your site becoming unavailable until the custom name servers are created and accessible.
-Do not confuse name servers with DNS zones. Name servers are a collection or DNS zones and provide DNS resolution services.
-Some registrars do not provide a facility to create name servers via their website, in this case you will need to have them do this manually by sending them an email.
-Propagation time is a period of time that begins between whenever you make a change to a DNS record, and ends after the DNS record changes are visible by everyone. This means that when making DNS changes, not everyone is necessarily seeing the same thing you are seeing. Depending on your DNS zone settings it can take up to 48 hours for DNS changes to fully propagate.
-Once your name servers are created and propagated you will need to set them in the control panel.

What are the advantages of using custom name servers?

Many resellers choose to use custom name servers to make their brand more apparent and to look more professional.
Getting custom name servers is free and if you are reselling services we highly recommend you set them up.

Another advantage of using your custom name servers is that it makes managing your domains easier as you do not need to individually re-point domains to new name servers, you can just modify your name server IPs and have the change propagate down to all your domains.