After registering a domain and buying hosting, you need to connect them. There are two methods: change the NS servers (recommended) or add an A record.

Method 1: Changing the NS Servers (Recommended)

With this method the entire DNS of the domain is managed from ZevsHost. It fits when you want to manage all DNS records in one place.

Steps:

Log in to your domain registrar's control panel
Find the "NS Servers" or "Nameservers" section
Replace the current NS servers with the ZevsHost ones:
```
ns1.zevshost.net
ns2.zevshost.net
```
Save the changes
In ZevsHost cPanel add the domain: cPanel → Addon Domains

Method 2: Changing the A Record

Use this method if you want to keep DNS at the registrar (for example, Google Workspace mail is configured there).

Find out the IP address of your ZevsHost hosting — it is given in the registration email or in cPanel → General Information
In the registrar's DNS panel find the A record for @
Change the IP to the IP of your ZevsHost hosting

Also add or change the A record for www:

@      IN    A    YOUR.HOSTING.IP
www    IN    A    YOUR.HOSTING.IP

Propagation Times

Action	Minimum	Maximum
Changing the NS servers	30 min	48 hours
Changing the A record	5 min	24 hours (depends on the TTL)

💡 Verification: Use whatsmydns.net to monitor DNS propagation worldwide. There is no need to wait 48 hours blindly — you can follow the progress.

Checking the Connection

# Check the domain A record
nslookup example.com

# Check the NS servers
nslookup -type=NS example.com

# Ping the domain
ping example.com

⚠️ Common mistake: The domain is added in cPanel, but the NS servers at the registrar are still the old ones. Or the other way round — the NS servers are updated, but the domain is not added in cPanel. You have to do BOTH steps.

Common Errors When Connecting a Domain

Symptom	Cause	Fix
The browser shows the hosting provider's placeholder page instead of the site	The domain is pointed via NS, but was never added as an Addon Domain in cPanel — DNS is correct, but the web server does not know about this domain	Add the domain in cPanel → Addon Domains and wait for the web server configuration to regenerate
ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS when opening the site	The A records for the bare domain and www point to the hosting, but a force redirect to another protocol/domain is also enabled there, conflicting with the CMS settings	Compare the force-HTTPS settings in cPanel and in the CMS — only one redirect layer should be enabled
nslookup still shows the old IP 3 days after the A record was changed	The record's TTL was set to 86400 seconds (24 hours) before the change, and the client's resolver cached the answer until that TTL expired	Wait for the old TTL to fully expire, or flush the DNS cache on the client side for diagnostics
Mail stopped arriving right after the NS change	The MX records were not migrated to the new DNS provider together with the NS change	Copy the MX, SPF and DKIM records into the new DNS control panel BEFORE changing the NS, not after

TTL and Why the Connection "Doesn't Work Right Away"

TTL (Time To Live) is the number of seconds a resolver is allowed to cache an answer. Typical values are 300 (5 minutes) for records that will change soon, and 3600-86400 for stable records. A user's ISP resolver may ignore a short TTL and hold the cache longer — that is not a standards violation, but a feature of some public DNS servers that enforce their own minimum caching TTL.

# Check the TTL of the current A record
dig example.com A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
;example.com.  300  IN  A  192.0.2.10

When the A Record Method Does Not Fit

You need to manage many subdomains and records centrally — keeping all DNS at the registrar is inconvenient with frequent changes
You plan to add a CDN or DDoS protection through an NS change (for example, Cloudflare) — combining that with manual A records at the registrar is redundant
The domain already has DNSSEC configured at a DNS provider other than the hosting — changing only the A record leaves the zone signature untouched, which is safer than changing the NS
You need load balancing across several IPs using record priorities and weights — that is done through the provider's DNS panel, not through a single static A record

If a full NS change is needed instead of just an A record, the step-by-step process is in how to change domain NS servers.

Checking the Connection — Extended Diagnostics

# Check that response headers actually come from the right server
curl -I http://example.com

# Check the SSL certificate right after connecting the domain
curl -vI https://example.com 2>&1 | grep -i "subject:"

# Make sure www and the bare domain point to the same IP
dig example.com +short
dig www.example.com +short

If curl -I returns a Server header from another provider instead of ZevsHost, DNS propagation has not finished yet on the resolver you are using, even if other resolvers already show the updated record.