What can I do with registered domain?

Hi all,

I have an existing website with a long-ass URL, so I thought 'Let me register a domain name with Dreamhost, and then point this name to my existing website'. Is this possible if I signed up for the 9.95/year plan? Can anyone give me a clue how to do this?

If not, what CAN I do with this plan? I have no clue what a name server is, or a DNS entry... absolute beginner here.

Thanks!

yes that is possible. is your site hosted here also? if so, just login to your DH cPanel, and click on Domains > Registration, and register the new domain. it might take a while for the domain to properly work, because it needs to propagate throughout the internet.

Thanks for the quick reply. My site content is not at Dreamhost, so I have to configure my Dreamhost account to point to my other site. But I have no clue where to do this...

I've been reading the Wiki and now I see that redirecting is only available for people who have hosting plans... Is that true? I have no hosting plan, just the 9.95/year cheap one.

Now I wonder what the use of Dreamhost's domain registration plan is...

Hmmm I see I have to change the name servers associated with my Dreamhost account...

Do you mean 9.95/year or 9.95/month?

If you mean 9.95/year, I think you have no hosting plan but only a domain name in DH.

And if I understand you correctly, you want to register a domain name in DH and point to other companies. To do so, you need to modify the DNS names in DH via

Thanks for your reply.

Here's what I have done:

* I have signed for a free DNS service (such as everydns, editdns, or zoneedit).
* I have changed my Dreamhost account so that my nameservers are not Dreamhost's, but instead the nameservers of the DNS service.
* I have configured by free DNS account to do URL forwarding.

I hope this will work.

Let us know if it worked for you!

Wholly - Use promo code WhollyMindless for full 97$ credit. Let me know if you want something else!

Yes, it worked! Here's what I found out. I'm surprised these things aren't conceptually explained in more detail anywhere (at least I had a hard time finding it).

* Suppose you use Dreamhost to register a domain, for 9.95/year. What you basically get, in terms of service, is an association between a domain name (www.whatever.com) and a nameserver. You don't get any control over any nameserver for that money. What you pay for is the connection between the domain name and a nameserver (any nameserver). But, luckily, you can control this connection.

* The default setting is Dreamhost's own nameservers. But these are useless on the 9.95/year plan (because you can't control anything). So you can use a free DNS service, such as editdns.net, everydns.net, or zoneedit.com. To change your settings to these servers, so to 'change WHOIS' under 'Registration'. (I recommend Editdns.net: it allows URL redirecting, including 'cloaked' redirecting; I recommend against Zoneedit--many people report problems with their free accounts.)

* These free DNS services provide the following service: they receive incoming requests and direct it to some IP address, this can be a static IP, or a dynamic IP, or a URL. You can configure these things quite easily, and it's all free.

* So this is a nice solution if you already have content on the web somewhere (you could also easily get some free space webcontent, for instance on Googlepages, or Microsoft Office Live). It's the most economical way to go.

Peace out

Thanks for sharing!

I saw the suggestions from mark in another post.

It's glad that you got it done.

Holy moly, this stuff is giving me grey hairs. Yesterday it worked for a while, but now it seems borked again.

Anyone here familiar with how to configure those free DNS services, in order to do URL forwarding? I managed to get it working for a while, but no longer. This stuff shouldn't be so hard. I have a newfound respect for people who work with Internet applications, holy moly.