The domain was bought somewhere else and the hosting is with us. For the site to open here you have to go into their panel and change one of two things. This article tells you which one, and what to look for in a panel we do not control.
|
Before you touch anything: your e-mail moves too. Changing nameservers does not just change where the site points. It moves the whole zone, and mail is part of the zone. If your mailboxes live where the domain lives, or with any other service, they stop receiving a minute later. If the e-mail is to stay where it is, do not touch the nameservers: edit the zone instead and change only the record for the website. The difference between the two is right below.
|
We are not going to describe screens. We have no account in other registrars’ panels, those panels are redesigned several times a year, and a wrong click path costs you half an hour and your trust in the rest of the page. What we do instead is more useful: we tell you what is the same everywhere, the words to look for, and how to check from the outside, which is the only proof that counts.
The two things you can change, and they are not the same
|
What it is |
When you use it |
| Nameservers |
The delegation: it tells the world who answers for the domain. Four names (or two), stored at the registry for the extension. |
When everything moves here: site, e-mail, subdomains. It is the clean route and the one we set up by default. |
| The zone (the records) |
The contents: the A, CNAME, MX and TXT records that live inside the zone. Whoever holds the nameservers is who reads them. |
When only part of it moves. The usual case: the website comes here and the e-mail stays where it is. |
If the difference between A, CNAME, MX and TXT is not clear yet, read DNS records explained first. What nameservers are, and which ones are ours, is in nameservers: what they are and which to use with us.
The map: five steps that are the same in any panel
| 1 |
Log in to the account where the domain was bought. Not our account, and not the hosting account: the registrar’s. If you do not know which one that is, the public lookup gives you the company name: see how to check the WHOIS.
|
|
| 2 |
Open the domain list and pick the domain. The usual words are Domains, My domains, Manage. If the account holds several domains, make sure you are in the right one before typing anything.
|
|
| 3 |
Decide: nameservers or zone. The table above answers that. When e-mail is involved and you are unsure, it is the zone.
|
|
| 5 |
Check from the outside. Their panel showing the new value proves nothing. The commands at the end of this article do.
|
|
The words to look for, and what sits behind each one
| Word |
What is usually behind it |
| Nameservers / DNS servers |
The delegation. This is where our four names go. |
| Custom DNS / External DNS / Use my own |
The switch you have to flip BEFORE the nameserver fields appear. Many panels hide the fields while their own DNS is selected. It is the number one reason someone says "it will not let me type". |
| DNS / Manage DNS / Zone editor / Records |
The zone: the list of A, CNAME, MX and TXT records. |
| Host records |
The zone again, under another name. The name field usually takes @ for the bare domain and www for the rest. |
| Forwarding / URL redirect |
This is not DNS. It is a registrar trick that bounces the browser somewhere else. It breaks e-mail on the domain, breaks the certificate and confuses search engines. It is not a way to point a website. |
| Parking |
Their advertising page. While it is on, the site visitors see is theirs, not yours. |
| Registrar lock / Transfer lock |
Locks transfers, not nameservers. You do not need to switch it off to point the domain here. |
| Glue records |
They only matter when the nameservers are named after the domain itself. With ours, you do not touch this. |
| TTL |
How long each answer is kept along the way. It sets your waiting time. See how long DNS changes take to propagate. |
Our nameservers
These, and they are the same for every account: dns1.interweb.ao dns2.interweb.ao dns3.interweb.ao dns4.interweb.ao
|
Enter all four if there is room. Some panels give you only two fields, and two are enough for the domain to work. If there are four fields, use four: that is what gives you slack when one server is under maintenance. And delete the ones that were there: leaving an old nameserver mixed in with ours makes the domain answer correctly sometimes and wrongly other times, which is the hardest kind of fault to diagnose.
|
|
Never copy nameservers from another company’s tutorial, and never type them from memory. One wrong letter raises no error in the panel: it just gives you a domain that does not open, and you only find out why hours later.
|
How you check, which is the only proof
These commands work on any computer and depend on nobody’s panel. Replace asuaempresa.ao with your own domain.
| 1 |
Who answers for the domain: dig NS asuaempresa.ao on Linux or macOS, or nslookup -type=ns asuaempresa.ao on Windows. While the list is not ours, the change has either not arrived or not been saved.
|
|
| 2 |
Where the site points: dig A asuaempresa.ao or nslookup asuaempresa.ao. The address that comes back has to be your hosting address, which you see in cPanel.
|
|
| 3 |
Where the mail goes: dig MX asuaempresa.ao. After a nameserver change, this is the command that tells you whether something broke.
|
|
| 4 |
The truth, with no waiting: dig @dns1.interweb.ao A asuaempresa.ao. It asks our server directly, skips every cache along the way and answers immediately. If it is right here and wrong out there, it is only a matter of time.
|
|
| 5 |
No command line? There are public websites that run these lookups on a page. We do not recommend any one of them and we do not answer for what they show: they are good for a quick look, not for a decision.
|
|
|
If you would rather not touch any of this, there is a shorter route: bring the domain here. You then have domain, zone and hosting in one panel and one invoice. See how to transfer a domain to us.
|
The mistakes that generate the most tickets
| What was done |
What happens |
| Editing the registrar’s zone after already changing the nameservers |
You are writing where nobody reads. The zone that counts is the one held by whoever has the delegation. Once the nameservers are ours, records are edited in cPanel. |
| Using forwarding instead of pointing |
The address changes in the browser bar, the certificate throws an error, and e-mail on the domain stops existing. |
| Changing nameservers while the e-mail lives there |
Mailboxes stop receiving a minute later, and the messages from that window do not come back. See e-mail in one place and site in another. |
| Letting the domain expire mid-move |
No DNS change rescues an expired domain. See expired domain. |
| Waiting without checking |
Half of all waiting is for a change that was never saved. Check first, wait afterwards. |
If the domain already points here and the site still does not open properly, the right article is registered the domain and it still does not open. And to see the site before you change anything, see seeing the site before the domain points here.
|
Tell us the domain and where it is registered. We will tell you exactly what to type, and check it with you afterwards.
Open a support ticket
|
RECOMMENDED PRODUCT Register your .ao domain Secure your company name before someone else registers it. from $33.30/yr Search a domain |
Português
English
