Clover

In most circumstances, if you can't find or edit the DNS settings on your company's control panel website, it's because your Name Servers are pointed to your old web host.


What Are Name Servers?

Name Servers dictate where your DNS settings are hosted. For example, if you can't find your DNS settings, and your name servers say something like, "NS1.somecompany.com, NS2.somecompany.com", this probably means your DNS is hosted someplace else. You can think of name servers as the master records that control everything else.


Should You Change Name Servers?

In order for you to have control of your DNS settings again, you will need to reset your name servers back to the original place where you bought your domain (Go Daddy, Network Solutions, etc). This will change all your settings, though, so it's important to know what you're doing. Here are two things you should check before you change your name servers:

1) Do you already have email set up on this web address?

If you don't have email set up already, you're in the clear. If you do have email already (whether it's with your current hosting company or an outside service like Google Apps), changing your name servers will break the connection to your email service.

To ensure the smallest amount of downtime, what you'll want to do is find out what your email (MX) records are currently set to, and then set your new MX records to those same values after you've changed your name servers. To find out what your current MX records are, you can look them up with an MX Lookup Tool or you can call your domain company.

This might also be a good time to switch to a completely new email service. We highly recommend Google Apps. For more information on that, check out the help article on Setting Up Your Email.

2) Are you ready do go "live" with your new site?

If your new Clover site is ready to go, then continue on with this tutorial. If your site's not ready for the world to see yet, then you should wait to switch your name servers.


How To Change Name Servers

We've written out step-by-step instructions Go Daddy, Network Solutions, Register, and 1and1. If you registered your domain through one of these companies, you can follow the walkthrough to change you Name Servers:

Change Your Name Servers With Go Daddy
Change Your Name Servers With Network Solutions
Change Your Name Servers With Register.com
Change Your Name Servers With 1and1