Connect Your Domain to Exact Hosting

For your website to load at your domain name, your domain has to direct visitors to your Exact Hosting server. This article explains the two ways to do that — updating your nameservers or editing your DNS records — and helps you choose the right one.

How a domain connects to hosting

Your domain name is the address people type into a browser. Your hosting account is where your website actually lives. Connecting them tells the internet, "when someone visits this domain, send them to this server."

There are two common methods:

• Point your nameservers to Exact Hosting. This is the simplest option and lets Exact Hosting manage all of your domain's DNS records for you.
• Edit your DNS records (specifically the A record) to your server's IP address. Use this when you need to keep your DNS hosted elsewhere — for example, if your email is managed by a different provider.

If you registered your domain with Exact Hosting, it is usually already pointed correctly and you can skip this article. [SME CONFIRM: that EH-registered domains are auto-pointed to the hosting account.]

Before you begin

• Access to your domain registrar. This is wherever you registered the domain (Exact Hosting or another company). You need to be able to sign in and change its settings.
• Your Exact Hosting nameservers or server IP address. Find these in your welcome email or in cPanel. [SME CONFIRM: document the exact nameserver hostnames, e.g. ns1.exacthosting.com / ns2.exacthosting.com, and where the customer reads their server IP — Shared IP shown in the cPanel sidebar.]

Step 1: Find your Exact Hosting DNS details

Before changing anything at your registrar, gather the values you will enter.

1. Sign in to cPanel.
2. Locate the account information panel (usually on the side of the dashboard).
3. Note your Nameservers and your Shared IP Address. [SME CONFIRM: exact label names and location in the current cPanel theme.]

Step 2: Choose your method

Option A: Point your nameservers (recommended)

Use this if Exact Hosting will manage your DNS.

1. Sign in to your domain registrar.
2. Find the Nameservers (sometimes called DNS or Name Server) setting for your domain.
3. Replace the existing nameservers with your Exact Hosting nameservers.
4. Save your changes.

If your domain is registered with Exact Hosting, you can update nameservers from your account — see the Domains Support articles [LINK NEEDED].

Option B: Edit your A record

Use this only if you need to keep DNS hosted elsewhere.

1. Sign in to wherever your DNS is hosted.
2. Edit the A record for your domain (the host is usually @ or your domain name).
3. Set its value to your Exact Hosting Shared IP Address.
4. If you want www to work, point the www record to the same place (an A record to the IP, or a CNAME to your domain).
5. Save your changes.

Warning: Changing nameservers moves all DNS management — including email (MX) records — to the new location. If your email is hosted somewhere other than Exact Hosting, use Option B, or re-create your email records after switching. Otherwise your email may stop working.

Step 3: Wait for propagation

DNS changes are not instant. They spread across the internet over a period called propagation.

• Most changes take effect within a few hours.
• Full propagation can take up to 24–48 hours.

Tip: You can check whether your domain is resolving to the correct server using a public DNS lookup tool. If it still shows the old location after 48 hours, double-check the values you entered.

Step 4: Confirm your site loads

Once propagation completes, visit your domain in a browser. You should see your website (or a default placeholder page if you have not added content yet).

If your site does not load, see Troubleshooting '500 Internal Server Error' or the site-loading troubleshooting article.

Next steps

• Add your website content. See Installing Applications with Softaculous or Migrating an Existing Website to Exact Hosting.
• Turn on your free SSL certificate. See Your Free SSL Certificate (AutoSSL).
• Set up email. Create addresses at your domain — see the Email Support articles [LINK NEEDED].

Questions? Contact Exact Hosting Support.