What is my domain and where is it hosted?

This is a question I got asked today by a client, and it’s not the first time I’ve been asked so I thought I’d share my answer to here with you!

Your domain is the internet address of your site. For example, or a long time my domain was www.lucydesigns.ie, now www.designsforgrowth.ie

Domains can be .ie, .com, .co,uk, .es, .fr and so on. If you are using a Squarespace website, you can buy your .com domain from Squarespace. You can simply go to this page and enter the domain you wish to buy.

If are an Irish business and want a .ie domain, you will need to register this with a company such as Blacknight, LetsHost, Spiral Hosting, Register365 etc. With these companies you can register a .ie domain for an annual fee and add on any domain email addresses you want, such as info@yourdomain.ie

Once you have your .ie domain with one of these companies, you can still connect it to your Squarespace website. More about that below.

But what if I have a domain but don’t know where it is hosted or how to access it?

There is a website called https://who.is/ where you can enter your domain name and it will tell you where it is hosted, listed under Registrar Info. So, if your domain is hosted with Blacknight, Blacknight will be listed under Registrar Info.

If you were unaware that your domain is with Blacknight, or whoever - which is strange because someone is paying them annually to host your domain - this might be because a previous web designer organised your domain on your behalf and might have your domain under their account. In this case, I recommend calling your previous designer and getting your domain switched to your own account with the hosting company. Chances are you will save money (the previous designer was probably charging you for managing your hosting, on top of Blacknight’s hosting fee) and at least you know where you domain is. This will also make it easier to point your Squarespace site to your domain, when the site is ready to launch.

How do I point my Squarespace site to my .ie domain?

This is something I usually do for my clients, by getting access to their hosting account (just access, I don’t manage their hosting for them) and making the desired technical changes. If you want to do it yourself, buckle up and follow these Squarespace instructions.

The tricky bit can be accessing your dns records in your domain hosting account (ie Blacknight, LetsHost or whoever is hosting your domain). But you will find that these companies have How To guides for connecting your domain to Squarespace. For example:

https://help.blacknight.com/hc/en-us/articles/212512429-Adding-Squarespace-DNS-Records-

https://kb.letshost.ie/how-do-i-connect-my-domain-to-squarespace/

Once you have added the correct A and CNAME records to your DNS records in your hosting account, ensure that any old A records or CNAME records connected to an old website are deleted. But don’t delete any TXT or MX records - you need these for your email to work.

It can be tricky to work all this out, so if you have any questions, pop them in the box below and I will endeavour to answer them for you.