Namecheap · domains

How to point your Namecheap domain at your Service Bay Digital website

Your domain is registered at Namecheap. To make it serve the website we built you, you change two settings called nameservers in your own Namecheap account. It takes about three minutes and you keep the domain.

Read this part first. Nameservers move your whole domain at once — website and email. Namecheap says the same thing on its own help page. So do not change them until we tell you we have copied your email records across, or your email stops the same minute and you will not be told.

The steps

Tell us before you touch anything

Reply to our email and say go. We copy every DNS record your domain already has — your email records especially — into our system first, and we check them twice. This step matters more at Namecheap than almost anywhere else: if your domain is on Namecheap’s own BasicDNS today, every record you have lives inside that Namecheap screen, and Namecheap’s own page warns that switching nameservers does not carry those records over — they simply stop being used. We copy them first. Then nothing breaks.

Sign in to Namecheap

Go to namecheap.com and sign in. We cannot do this part for you, and no honest company would ask you for that password.

Open your domain

From the left sidebar select Domain List, then select Manage next to your domain.

Find the Nameservers section

On that page, find the Nameservers section. It has a drop-down showing what your domain uses today — most often Namecheap BasicDNS.

Choose Custom DNS

Open the drop-down and choose Custom DNS. Enter the two nameservers from our email. They are different for every domain, so use the two we sent you — not two you found somewhere else. Namecheap wants the names only, in the ns1.example.com form; if you were given IP addresses anywhere, they do not go in this box.

Save with the green checkmark

Namecheap does not have a Save button here. Select the green checkmark next to the nameserver boxes — the change is not saved until you do, and this is the step people miss.

Tell us it is done

Reply to our email. Namecheap says a nameserver change can take up to 24 hours, and in rare cases longer, to reach everyone. We watch your email records the whole way through and check them again a day later.

Questions people actually ask

Will this break my email?

Not if you tell us first. Namecheap’s own page is blunt about the mechanism: when you move between its nameservers and custom ones, “the host records will not be added to the new nameservers automatically.” Nameservers move the whole domain at once, not just the website, so the mail records have to be carried across deliberately. That is exactly what we do before you touch anything, and we verify them afterwards.

Mine says BasicDNS — is that a problem?

No, it is the normal case and it is the one we plan for. BasicDNS means Namecheap is answering for your domain today and your records are in that Namecheap screen. We read them from there first, copy them across, and check them twice before you change the drop-down.

I changed it but nothing happened.

Check the green checkmark. Namecheap saves the nameserver boxes only when you select it, so a typed-in pair that was never confirmed looks saved but is not. If the checkmark was selected and it is still early, it is most likely just the wait — Namecheap quotes up to 24 hours.

Do I lose my domain?

No. It stays registered to you at Namecheap and stays yours. You keep paying Namecheap for it and you can point it back whenever you want. All that changes is which company answers when someone looks your domain up.

What about PremiumDNS — I pay for that.

Tell us before you switch. PremiumDNS is a paid Namecheap service and moving to custom nameservers stops your domain using it. That may be fine, or it may be something you are paying for and want to keep. Either way it should be your decision, made before the change rather than discovered after it.

Can I change it back?

Yes, in the same drop-down, and we will hand you your records to put back. Nothing here is one-way.

Steps checked against Namecheap’s own help page, “How to change DNS for a domain”, on 2026-09-15. Namecheap can change its screens without telling anyone; if what you see does not match this page, tell us and we will fix the page.