How to Update Your Church Domain Name

What you'll learn

• How to choose a domain name that represents your church well
• Step-by-step process for registering a new domain
• How to connect a custom domain to your church website
• What to do with your old domain after the switch
• Tips for minimizing disruption during the transition

Notes

• A domain name is your digital address, and every church should have its own to put on cards, door hangers and signs.
• A staging site or subdomain is for building and tweaking before you go live; it is not meant to be your real domain.
• A good domain is short, easy to say and spell, avoids numbers and special characters, and ideally is a .com.
• Also buy the .org, .church or other extensions and forward them to your main domain.
• Buy your domain yourself through a registrar like Namecheap, and keep the login so a volunteer leaving cannot lock you out.
• Domain hosting (DNS) is different from website hosting, which is where your actual site files live.
• A domain is leased, not owned; register for multiple years, turn on auto renew, verify the registration email and keep billing current.
• Skip registrar upsells like SSL, since a secure certificate can come with your website host.
• To connect your domain, enter it plainly in settings, then update the DNS records yourself or send login details for someone to do it.
• Expect a few business days for the update plus up to 48 to 72 hours for DNS to spread; confirm your registrar login works first.

Companion article

Notes and resources that go with this session