Overview
This article explains how to host your domain at DreamHost if it is registered at another company.
Background
You can purchase and maintain a domain registration at any company you like. However, transferring it to DreamHost is recommended as it's easier to manage both your hosting and registration in one place, directly within the DreamHost panel.
This article assumes you've already purchased your domain registration at another company.
Hosting a domain at DreamHost
The following steps add your website to a hosting plan and update its DNS so it is hosted online from DreamHost.
Add a hosting plan
For your site to display online, it must be configured on a hosting plan. This puts it on a web server so anyone in the world can view it. See the following articles for information on how to add a hosting plan.
Add your site to your hosting plan
This step adds the website to the DreamHost web server. See this article for information on how to add a domain to your hosting plan.
This only tells the DreamHost server to serve this domain name. You must still point your DNS to the server so it displays online.
Back up and upload your website files to DreamHost
This step uploads your website's data to your DreamHost server.
- Log in to the panel of your website's current hosting company.
- Back up all of your website files, databases, and emails from your old host via FTP. Contact your old host for instructions on how to back up this content at their company.
- Log in to your DreamHost server using an FTP client and upload your website files to the server.
- See the following articles for information on how to upload your database and email to your DreamHost servers:
- Migrate MySQL
-
Import another host's email into DreamHost
Importing email is only necessary if you want to also host your email with DreamHost. If not, you would point your website and database A records as described in the next step.
Point your DNS to DreamHost
To host your site on DreamHost's servers, you must update the DNS settings for your registration to point to DreamHost.
- Confirm the company where your domain is currently registered by running a WHOIS query.
- Log in to your domain registrar's account.
- Choose which DNS records to point to DreamHost. You have two options:
- Pointing Nameservers (recommended)
- Pointing A records
- Point the domain's DNS records to DreamHost (from the third-party registrar).
- Pointing Nameservers (recommended)
- Pointing A records
Wait for the DNS to update
After pointing DNS, it may take several hours for the records to update online. See this article for further details and how to check the status of the DNS during this time period.