[Support Guide] How can I manage my DNS with Netlify if I used another vendor to purchase my domain?

Support Support Guides
,
1

Last reviewed and updated by Netlify Support on December 2024

You are well on your way already - cool! Let’s get this figured out.

This will be a three-step process but don’t worry, it’s not that hard. Open an app you use to take some notes or grab a piece of paper if you are old-school like me.

  1. Go ahead and log in to your Netlify account, and add the name of the awesome domain you own to your site in the Domain Management section of the Site Configuration page.
  2. While you are still logged in, let’s turn on DNS for your site. Click the Options icon to the right of your custom name and select Set up Netlify DNS . On the resulting screen, scroll down to see your four Nameservers. Write or copy them down, because you’ll need them for the next (last!) step.
  3. Pull up the website for your domain registrar, aka the place where you bought your domain. Log in and edit the DNS settings there by replacing the existing nameservers with the Netlify nameservers you got from step 2, making sure to review (and action on, if necessary) the below note before doing so!

  • NOTE: Before you do Step 3, if you have previously set up any records at your registrar, for example, an MX record to handle your email, enter those records in the Netlify DNS over at Netlify. This will be on the same page where you see your name servers. Also: if you already have an active domain that you are migrating, you should definitely read this other article about migrating before you do anything: [Support Guide] How do I migrate a domain to Netlify DNS with zero downtime? !

  • Aaand you’re done! That should be all you need to do, but here is how you can check your (or any other domain) in the terminal:

whois myawesomedomain.com | grep -i "name server"

You should see the Netlify Nameservers from step 2. It might take time (up to 48 hours in rare cases) for these changes to be visible in a browser, so don’t worry if you can’t see your site right away. This article explains more about the delay and how to avoid it with some pre-planning: [Support Guide] Why do DNS / SSL changes take up to 48 hours to propagate? (TTL)

If you don’t see the right changes, try repeating the steps, or comment below and we’ll try to assist!

15

hi @laura,

Thank you so much for the post. I believe that i have done all of these steps. My https://www.mydomain.com is working fine but the http://mydomain.com is complaining about DNS not found.

I understand that I dont need to create any A records as netlify creates those for me but I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong.

Is that something you are able to assist with?

17

Hi, @tashmor. I believe this was answered on our helpdesk already.

As explained there, you did everything correctly and there was an error on Netlify’s side. It should be working now.

If not, please let us know.

27

Hello, I have an issue where over 24 hours after a DNS nameserver change at an external registrar, the domain is still not showing the deployed Netlify site.

The connection has timed out

An error occurred during a connection to hubflush.com.

    The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few moments.
    If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer’s network connection.
    If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.

The name server settings appear to have propagated correctly:

whois hubflush.com | grep -i "name server"          
   Name Server: DNS1.P07.NSONE.NET
   Name Server: DNS2.P07.NSONE.NET
   Name Server: DNS3.P07.NSONE.NET
   Name Server: DNS4.P07.NSONE.NET
Name Server: DNS1.P07.NSONE.NET
Name Server: DNS2.P07.NSONE.NET
Name Server: DNS3.P07.NSONE.NET
Name Server: DNS4.P07.NSONE.NET

Screenshot 2022-01-25 at 08.37.34
Screenshot 2022-01-25 at 08.37.34770×373 26.4 KB

I have followed this guide and tried the following to debug the issue:
Re-saving nameserver settings on the external registrar
Deleting and re-creating the Netlify DNS for the site (and saving the new set of name servers again)
Can someone help to fix this?

28

Hey @Ascul,

This appears to have resolved?

29

Hello, Yes, whatever you did worked?

42

Hello support,

I have the same problem ascul mentions here in januari 2022. I have set the nameservers at my registrar to point to netlifys. However netlify dns zone already couple of days stays on awaiting external dns. Not sure how to fix this. So my app can be pointing to my purchased domain. Wich now points to the netlify nameservers. dns1.p08.nsone.net , dns2.p08.nsone.net and dns3.p08.nsone.net. at the registrar i could only add 3 out off 4 ns. So i did the first 3 netlify gave, also gave a fourth dns4.p08.nsone.net i couldnt add at registrar. However i think first 3 should be enough. I dont have email or anything else yet. Please assist to make my deploy point to mydomain.app and www.mydomain.app

Thanks in advance for any help.

Gr,
Othman