Connecting Your Domain to Format

Format is a website builder popular with photographers and creative professionals, and Hover's Connect tool makes it simple to point your own domain at your Format site. This article walks you through connecting your Hover domain to your Format website.

How Connect Fits Into Setting Up Your Site

Connect is a feature in your Hover control panel that automatically adds the technical DNS settings your domain needs to point to Format. DNS (short for Domain Name System) is the internet's address book — it's what tells the internet which server should answer when someone visits your domain. Rather than adding those address-book entries by hand, you pick Format from a list in Connect and Hover takes care of the rest.

Note: Connecting can take up to 48 hours to fully settle, even though the setup itself only takes a few minutes.

Before you begin

• An active Hover domain — the domain you want to use for your Format website.
• Hover's nameservers set on your domain — Connect only works if your domain uses Hover's nameservers, ns1.hover.com and ns2.hover.com. Nameservers are the servers that control which company manages your domain's settings.
• A Format account and website — you'll need an existing Format website, with the domain already added to your Format account.

Warning: Changing your nameservers to Hover moves management of your domain's settings to Hover's system. Before you do this, make sure you're not relying on email or other services tied to your current DNS provider, since switching can disrupt them.

Step 1: Sign In and Select Your Domain

1. Sign in to your Hover control panel using your chosen method of two-factor authentication (2FA).
2. If you have more than one domain, select the domain you want to connect to Format from your list of domains.

Step 2: Confirm Your Domain Uses Hover's Nameservers

1. On the domain's overview page, check that the nameservers are set to ns1.hover.com and ns2.hover.com.

Step 3: Open the Connect Tab and Choose Format

1. Click the Connect tab, or click More and then Connect.
2. Find Format in the list of Connect partners and click Select.

Step 4: Add Your Format Website Name and Connect

1. Make sure the domain is already added to your Format account.
2. Enter only your Format website name — not the full URL.
3. Click Connect.

Step 5: Confirm the Connection

1. Once the connection is complete, Hover displays a confirmation message in the Connect tab.

Next steps

• Troubleshoot a connection issue — see Troubleshooting Domain Connect Issues if your domain doesn't connect to Format as expected.
• Learn more about the Connect tool — see Connecting Your Domain to a Host Using Connect for an overview of how Connect works with other hosting providers.

Questions? Contact Hover Support.