I’m new to Webflow, and I’m looking to set up a site to host my www domain related to my design sprint business. I have an existing account with Bluehost where they hold both my email and a Wordpress site (which I’m not using).
I’ve read some threads (some on fire) about hosting with Webflow, and I’ve also seen the custom hosting instructional video here too. Here’s what I’m trying to figure out:
If I have an email address tied to my domain (admin@dallasdesignsprints.com) at Bluehost (because the domain is currently parked there), and I point my A records to Webflow to host the www website I want to build, am I effectively paying two hosting fees?
If the answer to #1 is ‘no, you can host your site in Webflow and park your email address elsewhere’, are there any examples of someone who’s done that? Or, any URL’s of email providers that would do that?
I’m a bit out of my depth, so please be nice. I’m open to learning and doing the work to understand.
Yes you can (and have to) keep your emails on Bluehost.
Website hosting and Email set up are totally separate and will not affect one another. Webflow only offers website hosting, and nothing to do with emails.
Every site that is hosted on Webflow, only has their website hosted here. Their emails are always handled by a different party. To explain a bit further:
Your registrar is where you bought the domain from and handles all things domain related (for you it’s Bluehost)
Within Bluehost you can edit the domain’s DNS settings to change where certain services are hosted (or ‘pointed to’)
The 2 DNS settings for this question are A records and MX records.
A records handle website hosting. So when someone goes to your website, the request hits BlueHost and BlueHost uses your A records to say “Hey the domain is hosted over on Webflow’s servers”. Then your browser goes there
MX records are for email (you don’t edit or change these when setting up Webflow hosting). So when someone sends an email (or you send one yourself) from your @domain.com email address, it hits BlueHost again and BlueHost will use the MX records to figure out where the email is being sent/received from (eg Gmail, Outlook, etc)
Hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any follow up questions!
Thanks for the reply! So I did a little homework after reading your reply, and I realized I left a bit of information out of my original inquiry that may have steered you in the wrong direction.
So my domain is registered by Google Domains, but Bluehost hosts the unused WordPress site. With that, I think I found an alternative path:
Use the Basic version of GSuite (free 14 day trial, then $5 a month) to get an email address
