What are nameservers?

Nameservers are the servers that hold your domain's DNS records and answer questions about them, such as "where is the website for this domain?" or "where should email for it go?". You choose them at your registrar, and whichever company runs them is your DNS provider. For a domain on Oogle hosting, the nameservers are two Cloudflare nameservers assigned to your domain, which we send you when we set your domain up.

How nameservers fit in

When someone types your domain into a browser, their device asks the internet's directory who is in charge of that domain. The answer is your nameservers, which your registrar has published. The device then asks those nameservers for the record it needs (for a website, usually an A record) and connects to the address it's given.

So there are two layers:

• Nameservers decide which provider answers for the domain. They're set at the registrar.
• DNS records are the individual answers. They're set at the DNS provider the nameservers point to.

Changing a record at a provider your nameservers don't point to has no effect. That's one of the most common reasons a DNS change "doesn't work".

Nameservers at Oogle

Oogle uses Cloudflare for DNS. When you join, we add your domain to Cloudflare, and Cloudflare assigns it two nameservers. They look like xxxx.ns.cloudflare.com, with different names in place of xxxx. The pair is chosen by Cloudflare for each domain, so two Oogle clients will usually have different pairs, and a pair you've used with another Cloudflare account won't work here.

Once your registrar lists those two names and nothing else, Cloudflare answers for your domain, and Oogle manages the records in it. You don't need a Cloudflare login for this.

See which nameservers your domain uses now

Use either method below.

With a web lookup

1. Go to ICANN Lookup.
2. Enter your domain and run the lookup.
3. Find the nameserver section in the result. These are the nameservers your registrar has published.

You can also enter your domain at Google Public DNS, select Resolve, and look at the NS records.

With a command

On a Mac, open Terminal. On Windows or Linux, use a terminal with dig installed. Then run:

dig ns example.com @1.1.1.1

Replace example.com with your domain. In the answer section, look for the lines ending in NS followed by a nameserver name. For an Oogle-hosted domain you should see exactly the two names we sent you.

You'll know it's right when

Both lookups show the same two Cloudflare nameservers from our message, with no other nameservers alongside them.

Troubleshooting

• You see your registrar's own nameservers. The change hasn't been made or hasn't saved. See How to change your domain's nameservers.
• You see the right two plus an old one. Remove the old one. All of them must belong to the same provider.
• **ICANN Lookup and dig disagree.** A recent change is still spreading. Wait a few hours; see How long DNS changes take.
• You see Cloudflare nameservers, but not the ones we sent. They may be from an earlier Cloudflare setup. Replace them with the pair from our message, then tell us in your ticket.

Next steps

• How to change your domain's nameservers
• Why Oogle uses Cloudflare for DNS