What is a Domain Registrar?

Have questions about your domain registrar? This article will help bring clarity.

Jeff Willems avatar
Written by Jeff Willems
Updated this week

Every website you visit has a domain name that appears in the address bar of your browser. A domain registrar is a business that sells domain names for websites and handles all the details of registering those domain names.

This domain name is hosted by your domain registrar, where you purchased the domain. Here are a few common domain registrars:

  • Godaddy

  • Hover

  • Squarespace

  • Wix

Your domain registrar is where you would go to make domain-related changes like updating your DNS records which are numerical IP addresses that point your domain to your website hosts servers to display your website. During the domain & blog setup processes with Showit, we may need information about your domain registrar.

Not sure who your domain registrar is?

No problem, there are two simple ways to tell:

1). Who bills you for your domain? This cost is typically paid annually or a few years at a time. Check your inbox or financial statements to see who is billing you for your domain name to find out who your registrar is.

2). MxToolbox - This free online tool allows you to search your domain name. With the search type set to "DNS Lookup" as shown below, it will find your domain registrar your domain is hosted with and the server IP address your domain is pointed to.

*Some website hosts like Squarespace, Wix, or others may also provide domain registration/hosting in addition to hosting your site. At Showit we do not provide domain hosting, but here are more details on the hosting we provide.

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