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Connecting a Custom Domain

Use your own address, like yourbusiness.com, instead of the free one.

By the end of this page, your site will answer at your own domain name.

Free address vs. your own domain

  • Every site gets a free address that ends with our name. It works right away.
  • A custom domain is one you own, like yourbusiness.com. You buy it from a domain seller. It needs an active, paid site.

Connect your domain

  1. Open Site Settings from the left panel, then the Domains tab.
  2. Type your domain and click connect.
  3. You will see a short list of DNS records. These are settings that tell the internet where your site lives.
  4. Go to the website where you bought your domain. Find its DNS settings.
  5. Clear out old records first (see the next section).
  6. Add each record exactly as shown.
  7. Come back and click Check status.

You can connect the version with "www" and the version without. Each one shows its own status.

Clear out old records first

Your domain may already have records from a previous website, a parking page, or a forwarding feature. If they stay, some visitors are sent to the old place instead of your site.

  • Your bare domain (yourbusiness.com, shown as @ at most sellers) should end up with one A record: the one we show you.
  • www should end up with one CNAME record: the one we show you.
  • Delete any other A, AAAA, or CNAME record for those two names, and any parking or forwarding setting.
  • Leave records for email (MX and TXT) alone.

Where old records hide

Each domain seller keeps them in a slightly different place. Menu names change from time to time, so look for the closest match.

  • Squarespace Domains (including domains bought from Google Domains): open the domain, then DNS Settings. Check Custom records and also the default records section above it. A preset for a website builder or Google Workspace can add records you did not type. If your domain is set to forward to another address, turn that off.
  • GoDaddy: open the domain, then DNS. Look for a Parked A record on @ and a CNAME on www pointing at your domain. Also check Forwarding and remove it.
  • Namecheap: open Manage, then Advanced DNS. Delete the default URL Redirect Record and any parking CNAME or A record. Check that the domain uses Namecheap BasicDNS (under Nameservers on the Domain tab); if it uses custom nameservers, edit records at that provider instead.
  • Cloudflare: open the domain, then DNS, then Records. Delete other A, AAAA, and CNAME records for @ and www. Set ours to DNS only (grey cloud), not Proxied (orange cloud). Also check Rules for redirect rules on the domain.

The records only count at the company that runs your domain's nameservers. If you edit records somewhere else, nothing changes. Your domain seller's DNS page usually says which nameservers are in use.

Check what your domain is serving

To see what the internet currently sees, use a free tool such as whatsmydns.net. Enter your domain, choose type A, and look at the addresses returned. Repeat with www and type CNAME.

If you use a terminal:

dig +short A yourbusiness.com
dig +short CNAME www.yourbusiness.com
dig +short NS yourbusiness.com

The first command should return only the address we showed you. If it returns more than one address, one of them is an old record. The last command shows which company's nameservers control the domain.

How long does it take?

Often a few minutes. Sometimes up to a day. Check status again later. You can only check once every 90 seconds or so. After you delete a record, the old value can keep showing for a while, up to the record's TTL. During that time, different devices and networks can show different results: your phone on Wi-Fi might still reach the old site while the same phone on cellular, or your computer, reaches yours. This is normal and clears on its own. To test sooner, try another network, restart the device, or open a private window.

If it won't connect

  • www is connected but the bare domain is not: look for a second A record on @, a forwarding rule, or a parking page. See Clear out old records first above.
  • Check for typos in each record, and that the name (@ or www) is right.
  • Make sure you are editing records at the company that runs your nameservers.
  • Wait longer, then check again.
  • Your site must be active and paid.
  • Ask your domain seller's support to confirm the records are saved.

If your site is canceled

If a site is canceled and stays that way, its domain is let go. You can connect it again later.

Redirects

Redirects send visitors from an old address to a new one. Use one when you rename a page or move over from another site, so old links and bookmarks keep working. Redirects need an active, paid site.

  1. Open Site Settings from the left panel, then the Domains tab.
  2. In the Redirects card, click Add a redirect.
  3. Enter the old address as a path, like /old-page.
  4. Enter where visitors should go. This can be a path on your site, like /new-page, or a full address, like https://example.com/page.
  5. Choose the type of redirect and click Add redirect.

To stop a redirect, click Remove next to it.

Which type should I pick?

  • Permanent redirect (301): the page moved for good. Search engines move its ranking to the new address. Choose this most of the time.
  • Temporary redirect (302): the page is somewhere else for now. Search engines keep the old address.
  • Permanent redirect, keeps request method (308) and Temporary redirect, keeps request method (307): the same as 301 and 302, but form submissions are sent again unchanged. You rarely need these.

You can't redirect your home page, and a redirect can't point at itself.

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