Pointing Your Domain to Hosting With A Records
There are two common methods for connecting a domain to a third-party web host. The first is assigning your web host's Nameservers which puts your web host in charge of DNS. The second method is pointing your domain to hosting with A records, which keeps DNS at Porkbun. Porkbun's DNS servers tell visitors to your website which web server to load the site from and allow you to set up automatic free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate renewal.
What are A records? Click here to skip to the video tutorial on how A records work.
How to Point Your Domain to Third-Party Hosting
For pointing your domain to hosting with A records, you'll need to first obtain the IP address or addresses of your web server from your web hosting company. Once you have this information, you must remove your existing A records and add A records to your DNS configuration that point directly at your web server's IP address.
It may sound complicated, but we’ll walk you through it and show you how easy it is to learn how to point your domain wherever you like!
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Log in to your Porkbun account and arrive at the Domain Management screen. If you're already logged in, you can click on ACCOUNT in the top-right corner and select “Domain Management” to get there.
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Locate your domain and click the drop-down list to the right. On the menu that appears, click the "Edit" option next to "DNS Records."
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On the Manage DNS Records screen, scroll down and locate any ALIAS or CNAME records that are currently pointing at the wrong web server. Click the trash can icons to the right of the bad records to remove them.
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Scroll up to the top of the Manage DNS Records screen to add the correct A records. Generally, you want one record for requests for www.yourdomain.example and one for yourdomain.example (without the www.) Here's what you want to enter for the first record:
- Type: "A - Address record"
- Host: "www"
- Answer: This will be the IP address provided by your web host
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...then hit the green "Add" button. -
For the second record, you'll repeat the same steps as above, only the Host will be left blank.
- Type: "A - Address record"
- Host: left blank
- Answer: Again, this will be the IP address provided by your web host.
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...then hit the green "Add" button. -
Repeat the above steps for each IP address issued to you by your web host.
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- Click the “X” icon in the top right of the popup box to close the "Manage DNS Records" window.
Changing A records may take a few minutes to go into effect. After about five minutes, web browser requests for your domain will begin routing directly to your web server.