What is DNS?
DNS, the Domain Name System, is the internet's phone book. Computers find each other by number, so when someone types your domain, DNS looks up the number of the machine holding your site and sends them there. Pointing a domain at a new site means editing these records.
Why it matters to a shop
DNS is where launch day goes wrong. You bought the domain at one company and the site is hosted at another, and until the records are changed the domain still opens the registrar's parking page — the site is alive, and nobody can reach it by name. Once you do change them, the update spreads in patches: you may already see the new site while a customer across town gets the old one for hours yet. That is normal. Your business email also runs on DNS records, sitting in the same list, which is why "delete it all and start again" is exactly how a shop takes its own mail offline. The hosting address Naratake gives you at publish needs no DNS work at all; this step only arrives when you attach your own domain — one custom domain, which both cloud plans include.
How to point your domain at your site
- Log in wherever you bought the domain — the registrar — and find the DNS or name server settings. That is usually not the same company as your host.
- Add exactly the records your host gives you, normally one A record or one CNAME, and change only those rows. Leave the MX rows alone: those are your email.
- Then wait, and stop editing. Give it up to twenty-four hours and check from a phone on mobile data rather than the shop wifi, which may still be holding the old answer.
Common mistake: Seeing the old site right after a change and assuming it failed — editing again restarts the wait, and that is usually when mail records get deleted by accident.