Introduction

What is a domain?

A domain is a unique name that identifies a website. For example, the domain name of ShopGo’s site is “shopgo.me”. Each website has a domain name that serves as an address, which is used to access the website.

It is equivalent of a physical home address for a website. The name, such as “mywebsite.com” or “internetaddress.org” points to an exact location to a server, much like a postal address points to an exact apartment in a building.

What does it mean to host a domain?

Hosting (also known as website hosting or Web hosting) is the business of housing, serving, and maintaining files for your website. In a sense, you rent space on a computer to hold your website. Your host, the computer where your website files are stored, assigns an address (DNS) for your files to your domain name so that anyone can find your website on the Internet by typing in your domain name.

Why it’s important to link your domain?

Once you sign up with ShopGo and start your eCommerce experience, you create a demo store, which expires in 7 days.  Throughout these 7 days, you might have uploaded your products and worked hard on your website.  Your work and efforts will be lost once the demo store expires.  However, if you link your store to a domain then you have got nothing to worry about or loose!

What is an A-record?

The A in A-record stands for Address. Simply put, an A-record is used to find the address of a computer connected to the internet from a name.  A-records are used to map a name to a computer’s address on the Internet, and are one of the primary records used in DNS servers.

In the steps stated below, we have put the most popular domain host providers used by our clients, and how to link them to your website:

1. Go Daddy
2. Name.com
3. Host Gator
4. iPage
5. Network Solutions
6. Domain.com

Godaddy: 

1. Follow the directions to access the DNS Manager
2. Click Add Record
3. From the Record type list, select A (Host)
4. Complete the following fields:                                                                            a. Host name: Enter the host name the A-record links to type @ to point the record directly to your domain name, including the www.
   b. Points to IP address  Enter the IP address your domain name uses for this host record.
   c. TTL: Select how long the server should cache the information.
5. Click on OK, then click Save Zone File. The Arecord displays in the A(host) section.

Check it online by clicking on here.

Name.com

1. Log in to your Name.com account and click My Account at the top.
2. Click my domains in green, on the left.
3. Click on the domain name you wish to create an A record for.
4. Click DNS Records on the left.
5. Here you will create two A records:a.First Arecord:  Leave the drop-down menu Type as A, leave the Host field blank, and then copy and paste the IP address into the answer field. Then click the blue Add Record button.
   b.Second A record: Follow the same steps as in the first record, but in the Host field add a * symbol.

Check it online by clicking on here.

Hostgator

1. Users can create and edit A and CNAME records by going to the Simple DNS Zone Editor which is found under the Domains section in cPanel.
2. Users can also create and edit MX records with the MX Entry icon found under the Mail section in cPanel. For more information, please see: Local, Backup and Remote Mail Exchanger
3. Users can easily customize SPF records using the Email Authentication icon under the Mail section in cPanel.
4. Users can also add TXT records using the Advanced DNS Zone Editor icon under the Domains section in cPanel.

Check it online by clicking on here.

I Page

1. Log in to your iPage Control Panel.
2. Go to Domain Central.
3. Click on the domain you want to edit.
4. Click DNS.
5. From Modify, select A Records.
6. To add an A Record, enter the Host and the IP address in the fields provided.
7. Click Add to add the A Record. A confirmation message will appear.
8. To modify a setting, select Edit or Remove from the Action dropdown menu next to the A Record.

Check it online by clicking on here.

Network solution

1. Log in to Account Manger
2. Within Account Manager, use the drop down under My Domain Names to choose the domain you’d like to manage and click the Go button
3. In the green box, select Change Where Domain Points
4. Select Advanced DNS
5. Click the Continue button
6. If the domain name was not previously pointed to Network Solutions® nameservers (DNS) you will receive a page with messaging regarding this change. If you’d like to continue, click the Move Nameservers to Network Solutions® button
7. In the IP Address (A Records) section, click Edit A Records
8. Your current A records are listed in editable form, and any Network Solutions® service that is associated with the A record is listed below the Numeric IP text box
9. The first three hosts listed are the most common hosts used with domain names:

• 
  
  • www : Points to the specified IP address when Internet users enter an address, such as www.jimbikes.com
  • @ (none) : Points to the specified IP address when a user enters just the domain name without anything before it, such as jimsbikes.com
  • * (All OThers) : Points any unassociated host for a domain name to the specified IP address, similar to a catch-all feature that could be used for any misspelled host names.

Check it online by clicking on here.

Domain.com

1. Log in to your Domain.com Control Panel.
2. Go to Domain Central.
3. Click on the domain you want to edit.
4. Click DNS.
5. From Modify, select A Records.
6. To add an A Record, enter the Host and the IP address in the fields provided.
7. Click Add to add the A Record. A confirmation message will appear.
8. To modify a setting, select Edit or Remove from the Action dropdown menu next to the A Record.

Check it online by clicking on here.

Now I hope by now, you have linked your domain to our servers and your store is ready for your next step.

Outcome

At the end of this article, you should know how to change and add a Domain A-Record.