Domain Registration

Do you need a domain name?

Domain registration is the process by which you purchase your own unique domain name. If you need to obtain a domain name for your church (e.g. www.yourchurch.com) or business (e.g. www.yourcompany.com), we can do that for you. The cost of registering your domain depends on the Top Level Domain (e.g. com, org, net, etc.) that you decide to use, but most of the common ones are $12.95/year (see the table below).

Once you have purchased the registration from us, we will register the name with our registrar (Enom). It usually takes 24-48 hours for that information to make it's way throughout the Internet and your site becomes accessible from our servers.

Already have a domain name?

If you already own the domain name you wish to use for hosting at ChurchAssist, you can do one of two things (or both). One is to keep your registration at your current registrar and just update the nameserver entries to point to our servers, the second is to transfer the domain registration to our registrar. We typically charge $12.95 to transfer the registration, and your domain registration is extended one year.

Updating Nameservers

Nameservers are the post office of the Internet. Nameservers takes the domain name that someone types into a web browser, such as www.google.com, and decides where to go to get the content that is displayed in the browser. In order for your visitors to find your content hosted at ChurchAssist, the following nameserver entries must be associated with your domain:

ns.churchassist.com
ns2.churchassist.com

This association is made through the company that registered your domain. Your registrar should have given you the ability to login to your domain registration account on their web site. Somewhere in our account settings, you should have the ability to update your nameserver entries. (If you would rather we do this, please provide the login name and password to access your domain registration account when you place your hosting order.)

Once you have updated the nameserver entries to point to our servers, it usually takes 24-48 hours for that information to make it's way throughout the Internet. During that time, some visitors to your web site might get the content from your current registrar or hosting service, others may get the content from our servers.

Transferring Your Domain

If you would like to transfer your domain to our registrar, please indicate this when you place your hosting order. For most Top Level Domains (e.g. com, org, net, etc.), the cost to transfer registration is $12.95/year (see the table below), and your domain registration is extended one year.

Because the domain transfer process can itself take a couple of days, we recommend that the nameserver entries be updated before the transfer process is initiated. Otherwise, if we wait to update the nameservers until the domain transfer is complete, it could be three to four days before your site is active.