Hosting Terms
What is Nameserver?
Nameserver in plain English — the meaning, the comparison, and why it matters to anybody running a website.
Straight answer first
Nameservers are the servers allowed to answer DNS questions about your domain, and whoever runs them decides where your site, your mail and your services resolve.
The sections below open it up properly — how it works, why a site owner should care, and a concrete example of it doing its job.
Written by the Hosting Seller staff · Checked 1 August 2026
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Your registrar's delegation names those servers, usually a pair or more, and every lookup in the world eventually consults them. Change the nameservers and you hand the entire zone to a new operator in one move.
Hence the classic muddle: editing records at a provider your domain does not delegate to changes precisely nothing. Only the delegated nameservers have a voice anybody listens to.
Nameserver, by comparison
The people authorised to speak for your business. The world first checks who is accredited to answer, then believes whatever those particular people say about where to find you.
Comparisons simplify, naturally — but this one holds together well enough to reason with, and reasoning is the whole point of a glossary.
Why this one is worth knowing
Controlling the nameservers is controlling the service. Point them at your host and automatic certificates and sensible defaults follow; on a reseller setup, nameservers on your own domain finish off the white label.
You do not need to work at this layer every day. You need to recognise it when it explains something, which is exactly the moment this page earns its keep.
What it looks like day to day
Changing host, an owner edits two nameserver entries at the registrar. Within hours the new host's zone — site, mail, certificate validation — is what the whole world sees.
Multiply that example by every website on the internet and you have the concept's entire job description in one go.
The Hosting Seller angle
On our hosting this largely looks after itself — the platform applies sensible defaults, and the panel hands you the controls when you want them. The concepts worth reading next: DNS, DNS Propagation, Domain Registrar and A Record.
Bring an existing site and we shift it across at no charge — usually inside 24 hours, with nothing going dark while we work.
A glossary written by the people on the counter
We treat unexplained jargon as a service failure. This glossary is the support desk's accumulated translations, published where a search engine can hand them out for us.
Bring an existing site and we shift it across at no charge — usually inside 24 hours, with nothing going dark while we work.
- 100+ terms, all in plain English
- Everyday comparisons and real examples
- Related concepts linked together
- Written by the people on the desk
Why Hosting Seller
On every plan, as standard
Pictures that stick
Each concept gets a comparison you will still remember at the moment you actually need it.
Plain English first
Every term defined for people who run sites, not for other sysadmins — jargon translated rather than restated.
Linked, never siloed
Related terms cross-reference each other, so one lookup grows into a working understanding.
Honest about what to skip
Most terms are recognise-level rather than operate-level, and the glossary says which is which.
The next reads, mapped
Read on into DNS and DNS Propagation — terms rarely stand alone, so the neighbours are linked.
The stakes spelled out
Not only what it is, but when it turns out to be the answer to a problem you are having.
First Steps
From choosing to live
- 1
Find it in your own account
The quickest way to learn a hosting term is to find it in your own panel; five minutes of looking beats an hour of reading about it.
- 2
Check what the defaults are
Confirm how your account has this set. It is usually right by default here, and now you will know rather than guess.
- 3
Follow the terms next door
Concepts travel in packs — DNS, DNS Propagation and Domain Registrar finish this one's picture, and each is a two-minute read away.
In the Box
Packed with every plan
- A backup taken daily, with restores you run yourself
- A domain free for year one when you order annually
- One-click installs for WordPress and 400+ other applications
- The renewal price printed on the tag matches the order price
- Mailboxes that carry your own domain name
- WebP image optimisation built in and costing nothing
- WordPress Toolkit, with updates applied for you
- Upgrades apply to the account in place, with no move between plans
- The Softaculous installer for one-click application setup
- DDoS filtering handled out at the network edge
Across the Counter
The questions we get asked most
Why did my DNS edits change nothing?
You edited a zone nobody consults, because the domain delegates elsewhere. Check the delegation first — any WHOIS or DNS lookup shows it — then make the edit at the provider whose name is actually listed there.
What exactly are private nameservers?
Nameservers branded on your own domain, such as ns1.yourbrand.com, created with glue records at the registrar. They work identically to any others and simply look like yours. Resellers use them so client domains never mention the host upstream.
Does the price climb when the term is up?
No. What you pay to order is what you pay to renew, year after year. We do not run teaser rates, so there is no year-two ambush waiting in the calendar, and your bookkeeping can treat the hosting line as a fixed number.
Is there a refund if it does not suit?
Yes — thirty days. Put the hosting through real work, and if it is not right, ask for the money back and you get it; there is no retention script to survive first. Domain registrations are the one carve-out, because registries take that fee the moment the name is placed.
Can I bring a domain I already own?
Yes, and transfers in are routine. Unlock the name at your present registrar, collect the auth code, then start the transfer from your client area. Whatever registration time is left comes across with it, and DNS keeps answering the whole way through.
How do I pay, and does it bill again on its own?
Orders go through a secure checkout by credit or debit card, and the renewal is taken at the same price you first paid. Every invoice sits in the client area for you to read, and switching auto-renewal off is a toggle in your account rather than a phone call.
Who actually runs the company?
Hosting Seller is a trading name of Bohzo Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales — a real business with a public record and terms published under English law. Looking that up is worth doing about any host before you hand over your domain.
Read next
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Domain Names
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Packing up and moving host? Take our checklist.
A plain running order for a move nobody notices: what to copy first, how to carry email across without dropping a single message, when to point DNS, and the two slips behind nearly every hour of downtime we get called about.
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