How to Connect GoDaddy Domain to Bluehost?

It is common practice among webmasters to use multiple services for running a website. For example, you can register a domain with GoDaddy, use Bluehost shared hosting account and run your site on a WordPress installation. This gives lot of flexibility, reduced cost and always provide alternate option to change or transfer services. In this article we explain step by step process of pointing your GoDaddy registered domain to Bluehost hosting account.

Connect GoDaddy Domain to Bluehost

Step1 – Change Nameservers in GoDaddy

Login to your GoDaddy account and launch “Domains Settings” panel of your registered domain which you want to point to Bluehost.

Go to “Nameservers” option available under “Settings” tab. You will see GoDaddy nameservers are assigned by default and click on “Manage” link.

GoDaddy nameservers will be like “NSxx.DOMAINCONTROL.COM” where xx represents two digits like 01, 02, etc.

Click on “Custom” option and then click on “Enter custom nameservers”.

Enter Bluehost nameservers in the popup screen and save your changes. Default Bluehost nameservers are “NS1.BLUEHOST.COM” and “NS2.BLUEHOST.COM” or you can use direct IP addresses of the servers.

You can get the nameservers in your Bluehost hosting account under “Domains > Domain List > Choose Your Domain > Name Servers”.

Once you changed nameservers, it may take sometime for the changes to propagate. Click on the “DNS Zone File” tab to see the below message showing that your DNS zone file is not available with GoDaddy.

Step2 – Adding Domain in Bluehost

Now that you have changed nameservers to transfer the DNS zone file control to Bluehost and the next step is adding your domain in Bluehost cPanel. If you are creating a new Bluehost account then it is easy to use GoDaddy domain as a primary domain and setup your account. In this case there are no additional steps involved, but if you already have a Bluehost account with primary domain and want to add an additional domain registered from GoDaddy then add new domain under “Domains > Assign”.

Once the domain is successfully assigned, it can be seen under your domain list.

Step3 – Checking Your Site

GoDaddy domains will show a parked domain message when the nameservers of the domain is set as GoDaddy nameservers. When you change nameservers and add a domain to Bluehost account then the message will be shown from Bluehost as shown below. This is an indication that you have correct settings for your domain before installing any package from Bluehost.