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How to Point Your Domain to Node Creek’s Nameservers

This guide walks you through updating your domain’s nameservers so that Node Creek can manage your website’s DNS settings through Cloudflare. This is a required step when Node Creek is hosting or deploying your website.

What does changing nameservers do?

Nameservers tell the internet where to look for your domain’s DNS settings. Pointing your domain to Cloudflare’s nameservers gives Node Creek the ability to manage your site’s DNS records, set up your hosting, configure email routing, and more.

Your domain registration stays with your current registrar - this only changes where the DNS settings are managed.

Before You Start

Confirm your nameservers with Node Creek first. Cloudflare assigns a unique pair of nameservers to each account, so the exact values vary. Node Creek will provide you with the two nameserver addresses to use (they look something like linda.ns.cloudflare.com and nolan.ns.cloudflare.com). Do not make changes until you have these values in hand.

GoDaddy Instructions

GoDaddy is the most common domain registrar, so these instructions are detailed.

Instructions:

  1. Sign in to your GoDaddy account: Visit https://account.godaddy.com

  2. Go to your Domain Portfolio: Visit https://account.godaddy.com/products/domains and click on the domain you want to update

  3. Open DNS settings: Scroll down to the Nameservers section and click Change

  4. Select “Enter my own nameservers”: Choose the custom option (not GoDaddy’s default or premium DNS)

  5. Enter the nameservers: Type in the two nameserver values provided by Node Creek, one per field

  6. Save your changes: Click Save or Continue to confirm

Important Notes:

  • You may be shown a warning that changing nameservers will affect your existing DNS records - this is expected
  • GoDaddy may ask you to confirm the change via a checkbox or additional prompt

Official Guide: Change my nameservers (hosted elsewhere)

Other Registrars

The process is similar regardless of where your domain is registered. Look for a section called Nameservers, DNS, or Name Servers in your domain management dashboard.

General Steps (Namecheap, Google Domains/Squarespace, Network Solutions, etc.):

  1. Sign in to your domain registrar’s account

  2. Find your domain in your account dashboard

  3. Locate the Nameservers section: This is usually under “DNS”, “Domain Settings”, or “Advanced Settings”

  4. Switch to custom nameservers: Select the option for custom, external, or third-party nameservers (the exact label varies by registrar)

  5. Enter the nameserver values provided by Node Creek

  6. Save the changes

If you’re having trouble finding the nameserver settings, search your registrar’s help center for “change nameservers” or contact their support team.

What to Expect After Changing Nameservers

DNS propagation takes time. After you save the changes, it can take anywhere from a few minutes to 48 hours for the update to fully take effect across the internet. In most cases it happens within a few hours.

During this window:

  • Your website may be temporarily unreachable or may alternate between the old and new configuration
  • Email delivery should not be affected if it was set up correctly beforehand
  • This is normal - there is nothing wrong if things look inconsistent for a short period

Once propagation is complete, Node Creek will confirm everything is working correctly on our end.

Need Help?

If you have questions or run into issues:

  • Contact Node Creek at: [email protected]
  • Reach out to your domain registrar’s support team for help with their specific platform