Hosting, Email & DNS

Nelly71

Hi. I'm considering moving my hosting account but the company recommended to me only provide hosting services, not email or DNS, unlike my current provider. My questions are as follows:

1) What is DNS in layman terms?
2) Can you suggest good email (with own domain) and DNS companies?
3) What about the domain name renewals - which of these companies looks after this, or is this yet another separate service to get sorted?

Thanks in advance.

mneylon

Nelly71 wrote: »

Hi. I'm considering moving my hosting account but the company recommended to me only provide hosting services, not email or DNS, unlike my current provider. My questions are as follows:

1) What is DNS in layman terms?

It's like a telephone book for the internet. Without it your domain name and any attached services aren't reachable

Nelly71 wrote: »

2) Can you suggest good email (with own domain) and DNS companies?

I'm surprised that any hosting provider in 2014 wouldn't offer both email and DNS services ..

Nelly71 wrote: »

3) What about the domain name renewals - which of these companies looks after this, or is this yet another separate service to get sorted?

Thanks in advance.

You pay whoever you currently pay for the domain name(s) unless you move them to a company that also sells domains ..

Nelly71

Thanks! The DNS providers don't seem to explain it very well

mneylon

Nelly71 wrote: »

Thanks! The DNS providers don't seem to explain it very well

Most of the DNS providers cater for quite high end users so that doesn't really surprise me

It's why I'm surprised that a provider wouldn't offer a basic DNS service

Mrs OBumble

I have a very similar question:

I took over the maintenance of my choir's website (long story, set up by a developer with only a little web-knowledge, who'se since left the choir - I was the only one with anything vaguely resembling the skillset).

They had DNS hosting, site hosting and email thru the one provider. Two separate invoices each year, one for the domain and one for the hosting.

I've converted the site onto one built with Blogger, and found my way thru CPanel enough to set up the custom domain stuff that needed. This means we don't need the site hosting part any more (because Google provides that for sites built with Blogger).

But the provider's basic package includes both email and site hosting. So to cancel the package, I need to figure out how to migrate the email onto "somewhere else".

Now I have enough nous to have connected to the email via the provider's interface, used their client to look at the mailbox and set up forwarding rules .. and have now connected my own Gmail account to see the one mailbox that we use. But I'm a long way from expert in this area, and a little scared that I'll make a mistake if I try to change things.

Has anyone got any suggestions of ways I could move the email elsewhere, including keeping all the messages in the inbox.

ATM, we are only using one email address, though have used 2-3 in the past.

cormee

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

I have a very similar question:

I took over the maintenance of my choir's website (long story, set up by a developer with only a little web-knowledge, who'se since left the choir - I was the only one with anything vaguely resembling the skillset).

They had DNS hosting, site hosting and email thru the one provider. Two separate invoices each year, one for the domain and one for the hosting.

I've converted the site onto one built with Blogger, and found my way thru CPanel enough to set up the custom domain stuff that needed. This means we don't need the site hosting part any more (because Google provides that for sites built with Blogger).

But the provider's basic package includes both email and site hosting. So to cancel the package, I need to figure out how to migrate the email onto "somewhere else".

Now I have enough nous to have connected to the email via the provider's interface, used their client to look at the mailbox and set up forwarding rules .. and have now connected my own Gmail account to see the one mailbox that we use. But I'm a long way from expert in this area, and a little scared that I'll make a mistake if I try to change things.

Has anyone got any suggestions of ways I could move the email elsewhere, including keeping all the messages in the inbox.

ATM, we are only using one email address, though have used 2-3 in the past.

You need to change your MX records to new mail provider. Or even simpler - use Gmail with your domain name