Overview

You need two things to have a successful website and professional email: a domain name and a hosting account.

• Domain Name - Your domain name is what people type into their browser to find your website. Still, the website's address is really a unique string of identifying numbers called an IP address that isn't easy for most people to remember. Your domain name functions as a memorable link or shortcut to the IP address, making it easier to get to your website without needing to remember its numeric address.

• Hosting Services - Website hosts are companies that house, serve, and maintain files for many websites. A website hosting company is like a shopping center with space for many individual stores. A hosting account is like leasing a space in that shopping center where you can set up shop. Website hosting companies let you lease space on their web servers where you can store your website files and make them available for your visitors to view. Basically, this enables your website to be up and running and be accessible via the internet.

Without a domain name, your website visitors won't have a memorable way to get to your website. And without a hosting account, there won't be a website to see or go to.

Bluehost offers both hosting and domain names to make it easy to manage your email, website, and domains— all in one place. You can register new domain names and transfer domains you already own right inside your Bluehost account.

If you want to see the hosting packages we offer and their differences, please click here.
If you want to check if the domain name you have in mind is available and how much it will cost, please click here.

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• Using a Domain, You Already Own
• Register a New Domain Name
• Domain Privacy

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Using a Domain, You Already Own

If you already own a domain name that is registered elsewhere, you can still use it with your Bluehost account. You'll need to change your domain's settings to point to Bluehost. To do that, contact your registrar or log in to your account with your current registrar and change the name servers to:

Bluehost Nameservers
ns1.Bluehost.com	162.88.60.37
ns2.Bluehost.com	162.88.61.37

This tells your registrar that Bluehost is now the hosting provider. It doesn't move website content; that is something you'll do later in your control panel. Once that's been done, every host and internet service provider will take around 24-48 hours for the nameservers to associate with your domain. This is called DNS propagation.

Once a domain has been pointed here (by changing the name servers), there are two ways you can use the domain on your account. You can transfer the domain's registration to your Bluehost account, or you can assign the domain name to your account without transferring the registration.

Domain names are typically renewed once a year and sometimes for multiple years at a time. It can be easy to lose track of where your domains are registered when it's time for renewal, especially if your domain and hosting are in separate places. Remember, you need both a hosting provider and a domain registrar to have an active website and working email. For this reason, many of our customers like to transfer domains to their Bluehost account to keep things simple. Here you can keep everything on one bill, purchase domains for multiple years, and set up your domains and hosting to renew automatically; no need to worry about a lapse in service or, worse -- losing your domain registration altogether.

Register a New Domain Name

Your domain name is the name of your website and acts as your address on the web. Viewers will use your domain to find your website, which is why it's also a good idea to register your domain name along with common misspellings and various other domain extensions— just in case. If you own johnsphotography.com, see if johnsphotos.com and johns. Photos are available to catch users who misspell your domain name. We make it easy to see which domain names are available for registration.

Shorter domains are typically better since they are easier to type out and remember. If your business name is long, you might try registering one domain for your website and a shorter version of the domain name just for email. Email addresses should be simple enough to be written out and spoken aloud without too much effort.

Your domain should be unique so you won't be confused about another website or business, but simple so it's easy to remember. Avoid things like hyphens or unusual spelling so people can still find you online.

You can also set up redirects on your hosting account so that if someone visits a misspelled or short version of your domain, they can be redirected to the correct site.

Domain Privacy

Every domain name has public information tied to it about the owner of the domain. For example, the owner's name, email address, phone number, and even home address are publicly available online in the WHOIS database.

The rules and laws surrounding domain names require every domain name owner to disclose their contact information. But most people wouldn't want their personal contact information available to the public where scammers, hackers, and anyone else can see it. This is what makes Domain Privacy so valuable.

Domain Privacy protects you from:

• Spam and other unsolicited emails
• Unwanted phone calls and postal mail
• Identity theft
• Fraudulent domain transfers