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Domains

Connect your domain

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Move your whole site to a domain you own. Home at you.com, blog at you.com/blog, app at app.you.com.

If you own a domain, for example example.com, your whole site can move to it:

What Address
Home page example.com
Blog example.com/blog
App app.example.com

Don't have a domain yet? You can buy one from a registrar such as Namecheap or Cloudflare. Common ones cost about $10 a year.

  1. Enter your domain

    Open Address. Under Use your own domain, type your domain and press Next.

  2. Add the records at your registrar

    The page lists the DNS records to add. Each one has a Type, a Host and a Value, with a Copy button. There are usually three:

    Type Host What it is for
    ALIAS (CNAME at Cloudflare, Aliyun and DNSPod) @ Your site
    TXT _cf-challenge Proves the domain is yours
    CNAME app Your app

    Copy each Value from the page. Don't type it yourself. Set TTL to Automatic or the shortest option. See below for each registrar.

  3. Wait

    The page checks by itself and updates when each record is ready. You can leave and come back. Once the records are right, they usually take a few minutes to reach the whole world, and then HTTPS is set up.

When your domain is connected, your site uses it, and yourname.ownsite.me no longer opens. Your app opens at app.example.com, and the backup address app.yourname.ownsite.me always works too.

Careful:

In Host, type only @, app or _cf-challenge, never the full domain. Add only these records, and leave the others alone (for example, your email records).

#Adding records, by registrar

Namecheap

  1. Open Domain List, press Manage next to your domain, then Advanced DNS.
  2. Delete the built-in records: the CNAME www -> parkingpage.namecheap.com and the URL Redirect for @.
  3. Press Add New Record for each record, and save each one with the green ✓.

Cloudflare

  1. Open your domain, then DNS -> Records -> Add record.
  2. For the @ record, choose type CNAME.
  3. Set Proxy status to the gray cloud, DNS only, on every record. With the orange cloud, HTTPS cannot be set up.

Aliyun

  1. Open Alibaba Cloud DNS and press DNS Settings next to your domain.
  2. Press Add Record. Choose type CNAME, put the Host in Hostname and the Value in Record Value.

DNSPod

  1. Open your domain's record list and press Add Record.
  2. Put the Host in Host, choose type CNAME, and put the Value in Record Value.

Other

Open your domain's DNS settings. For the @ record, use a type called ALIAS, ANAME, or "CNAME flattening".

If a record with the same name already exists, delete it or change it to the value on the page.

Note:

GoDaddy and Squarespace cannot point the domain itself (@) at another address. The page tells you if this applies. You can move your domain's DNS to a provider that supports ALIAS, such as Cloudflare, and add the records there.

#Stop using your domain

On the same page, press Stop using this domain. Your site goes back to yourname.ownsite.me. You can keep or delete the records you added.

To switch to a different domain, stop using the current one first, then enter the new one. A domain can only be used by one site at a time.

Stuck? See Domain status and fixes.