What Are Nameservers, and When to Change Them

If you've ever been told to 'change your nameservers', you may have wondered what are nameservers in the first place. In short, nameservers are the servers that hold your domain's DNS records — the authoritative phonebook the internet checks to find your website and email. This guide explains what they do, how changing nameservers differs from editing individual records, and when each approach is the right one.

What nameservers do

Every domain is assigned a set of nameservers. When someone visits your domain, the internet asks those nameservers for your records — your A record, MX records and so on — and uses the answers to connect. By default, your domain uses our nameservers, so you manage everything from your dashboard. But you can point your domain at a different provider's nameservers if you'd rather they hold your records instead.

Editing DNS vs switching nameservers

These are two different things, and mixing them up causes most of the confusion:

• Editing DNS records — you keep your current nameservers and change individual records (A, CNAME, MX) yourself
• Switching nameservers — you hand DNS control to another provider, and from then on you manage records there, not here

If you only need to point your domain at a website or add email, editing records is simpler and keeps everything in one place. You rarely need to switch nameservers just for that.

When to change your nameservers

Switching makes sense when a host or platform asks you to use theirs so they can manage DNS for you — common with all-in-one hosting and some CDNs. The trade-off is where your records live: once you switch, changes must be made on the new provider's side, and any records you previously set here stop applying. Make a note of your existing records before switching so nothing important is lost.

How to change them safely

Get the exact nameserver addresses from your new provider, enter them in your dashboard, and save. Propagation can take a few hours, and occasionally up to a day or two, so plan the switch for a quiet period and avoid making other changes at the same time. If email or your site briefly behaves oddly during the switch, give propagation time to finish before troubleshooting.

Before you switch: copy your records

The single biggest nameserver mistake is switching without first copying your existing records. The moment you move to a new provider's nameservers, the records you set here stop applying — so if you don't recreate your A record, www CNAME and especially your MX records on the new side, your website or email can suddenly stop working. Write everything down first, set it up on the new provider, then switch. That order means visitors never notice the change. It's also wise to switch outside of busy hours, so that even if something needs adjusting, the fewest possible customers are affected while propagation completes.

What stays the same

Switching nameservers doesn't change who owns the domain or where you renew it — that stays in your account here. You're only moving where the DNS records are managed, not the registration itself. Your domain, your billing and your renewal reminders all continue exactly as before, which is worth remembering if a host implies you need to move the whole domain. You don't; you only point the nameservers, and you can always point them back to ours later if you decide to manage DNS here again. Keeping the registration in one place also makes renewals simpler, since everything you pay for sits in a single account.