Connect your domain

When your site goes live, it gets an address that ends in .pages.dev, like yourbusiness.pages.dev. It works right away, and it keeps working after you connect your own domain. This guide moves your own web address, like www.yourbusiness.com, over to your new site.

It takes about 10 minutes of work. You do the steps at your domain provider yourself: we can't sign in to your provider's account or change its settings for you. This guide covers the most common providers. For any other, see Another provider.

Before you start

• Your site needs to be live. Until it is, the Domain page says Your site isn't live yet. We email you when it's live.
• Know where you bought your domain. That's your domain provider, like GoDaddy, Namecheap or Squarespace. Look for a yearly renewal email or charge if you're not sure. You need to be able to sign in there.
• No domain yet? You can get one through us at cost, with nothing to set up: see Get a new domain through us. Or buy one from any domain provider (it usually costs $10–20 a year) and follow the steps below.
• Moving from an old website? Add redirects for its old page addresses first and publish, so old links and Google searches land on the right new page.

Get a new domain through us

If you don't have a domain yet, you can get one on your Domain page. We register it in your name and set it up for your site, so there are no records to add.

1. On your site's card on Sites, click Connect your domain.
2. Choose Get a new domain, type your business's name (or the domain you'd like) and click Search. We show whether it's free and a few others that are.
3. Pick one. Check Whose name is it in?: it's filled in from your business info. Your name, email, phone and address must be real, because the registry checks them. They stay private.
4. Click Pay and pay for the first year. You pay what it costs us, with nothing added: about $10 a year for a .com.
5. Back on the Domain page, it says Registering…, then sets up the secure connection. It usually takes a few minutes, and we email you when your site is live at it.

Confirm your email. The registry (through Cloudflare, who registers domains for us) emails you a link to confirm your email address. Click it within 15 days, or the domain stops working. Check your spam folder if you can't find it.

Renewing. Your domain renews each year at whatever the registry charges then, still with nothing added. We charge the card you paid with a month before it renews. To stop, click Stop renewing on your Domain page: it stays yours until the date shown, then expires.

It's yours. The domain is registered to you, not to SiteBrite. To move it to another company, click Move it to another company and we email you its transfer code. New domains can't move for their first 60 days (a registry rule). If you cancel your website, your domain keeps renewing until you stop it or move it.

Only an account owner can buy a domain. Domains can't be refunded once they're registered. If we can't register the name you paid for (most often because someone got it a moment before you), you get your money back automatically.

1. Type your domain in your dashboard

1. Sign in to your dashboard.
2. On your site's card on Sites, click Connect your domain.
3. Under Your domain, type your domain, like yourbusiness.com, and click Connect.

Your site will be at www.yourbusiness.com, and yourbusiness.com will forward there. To use a different address, like shop.yourbusiness.com, type that instead.

Your site is set up for the domain in a few seconds (Getting your site ready…, then Your site is ready for your domain). The page then shows the next steps, with your own values filled in, and follows along as you do them. You can also get there from the editor: choose Domain in the left menu, then Connect it in your dashboard.

2. Open your domain's DNS settings

The Domain page names the company that runs your domain's DNS and shows where to click. Sign in there and find the domain's DNS settings. Each provider names them a little differently:

• GoDaddy: your domain list, then the domain, then DNS.
• Namecheap: Domain List, then Manage next to the domain, then Advanced DNS.
• Squarespace Domains (including domains that used to be on Google Domains): the domain, then DNS, then DNS settings.

Can't find it? Search your provider's help for "add a CNAME record", or see Another provider.

3. Add a CNAME record for www

Add a new record with these values. The Domain page in your dashboard (and the Domain screen in the editor) shows them with your site's real address filled in, and a Copy button next to each one.

If you chose an address like shop.yourbusiness.com, the Name is shop instead. Sometimes the Domain page shows a second record, of type TXT. Add that one too, with its own Name and Value.

• There's already a www record? Change it to these values, or delete it and add the new one. You can't have two records named www.
• Leave every other record alone, except the one in step 4. Records of the type MX and TXT run your email.
• Some providers add your domain to the name for you. Type just www, not www.yourbusiness.com.
• Your DNS is at Cloudflare? Set the record's Proxy status to DNS only (a gray cloud).

Once you save it, the Domain page says We see your record. That can take a few minutes.

4. Add an A record for the address without www

People also type yourbusiness.com without the www. One more record, in the same DNS settings, sends them to your site:

This works at every domain provider, with nothing to buy. It points your domain at our forwarding server, which sends visitors on to www.yourbusiness.com with a secure connection.

• There's already an A record named @? There usually is, for your old website or a parking page. Change it to these values. If there's more than one, delete the others.
• Some providers name it differently. Some want the Name left blank, and some show your domain there instead of @.
• Delete any AAAA record named @. It points to your old website, and some visitors would still end up there.
• Your email is delivered through your domain without www? The Domain page checks. If it says First, keep your email working, follow its steps before you change this record. Some older hosting accounts (often with cPanel) send email through the domain itself, and changing the record first would stop your email.
• Your DNS is at Cloudflare? Set the record's Proxy status to DNS only (a gray cloud).
• Already forwarding with your provider? If https://yourbusiness.com opens your site, you're done. If only http:// works, turn the forwarding off and add the record above instead.

Once you save it, the Domain page says We see your record, then sets up the padlock for yourbusiness.com in a few minutes.

5. We switch your site over

You can close the page now. To come back to it, click Finish connecting your domain on your site's card. We check every 15 minutes. When your domain works, we:

• set up the padlock (a secure connection), so there's nothing to buy
• switch your site's search and sharing settings to your domain, so Google lists your own address
• email you that your site is live at your domain

It usually takes under an hour. It can take up to a day, because computers remember the old setting for a while. To see the latest, open the Domain page and click Check now.

If we don't see the record within 14 days, we stop waiting and the Domain page says so. Fix the record, then click Connect again.

Disconnect your domain

Typed the wrong domain? While the Domain page is waiting for your record, click Start over next to Typed the wrong domain?, then type the right one.

Once your domain is connected, the Domain page shows Connected and the address. To stop using it:

1. Click Disconnect this domain.
2. Click Yes, disconnect. Your site goes back to its .pages.dev address in about a minute.

To move to a different domain, disconnect the old one, then connect the new one as above.

If something isn't right

• You see your old website. Your browser or network may still remember the old setting. Wait an hour, then try on your phone with Wi-Fi turned off.
• The Domain page says your record points somewhere else. There's an old www record. Change it to the values in step 3.
• The Domain page says "This domain stopped working". Check that the www record at your domain provider still has the values in step 3. If it does and the page still says this after a day, email us.
• The Domain page says a CAA record is blocking the secure certificate. A CAA record is a DNS record that says which companies may issue your certificate. Your provider's help explains how to find and change them, and the Another provider prompt can walk you through it.
• yourbusiness.com (without www) doesn't open your site. Check the A record in step 4: its value should be 34.226.59.60, with no other A or AAAA records named @. Then open the Domain page to see what we find.
• You see an error page from Cloudflare. Open the Domain page and click Check now. If it still shows an error after a day, email help@sitebrite.app.
• Your email stopped working. A record other than www or @ was changed or deleted, or your email was delivered through the domain without www (see step 4). Put back the record you changed, with the values from your provider's DNS page before you edited it. If you didn't save them, your provider's support can show you the old records.
• Your provider's screens look different. Use the prompt in Another provider, or search YouTube for your provider's name with "CNAME record". Check that a video is recent, since providers change their screens.

Another provider

We can't set up your domain for you, so these are the places to look for your provider's steps. Each link goes to the provider's own help. Their menus change, so if a step doesn't match what you see, the provider's current article is the one to follow.

Some tips for finding a video: pick one from the last year or so, and check that it's for your provider's current screens. Search for "add CNAME record" and "add A record" together, since you add both.

If you can't find the DNS page at all, your domain probably uses different nameservers, so its DNS is managed somewhere else. Your provider's help will say where, for example "change nameservers" in its help. Make the record there.

Some providers have one-off rules: Namecheap only shows its DNS editor when the domain uses its BasicDNS setting. Squarespace doesn't allow a CNAME on the bare domain, so the A record in step 4 is the one for @. Some providers pre-fill default records that clash with yours, so delete the clash before you save.

• Ask an AI assistant. For any provider, paste this prompt into one, and fill in the values from step 3 and step 4 on your Domain page:

I'm connecting my domain yourbusiness.com to a website. My domain provider is provider name. Please show me, step by step, where to add these DNS records in my provider's control panel:

1. Type CNAME, Name www, Value the Value from the Domain page
2. Type A, Name @, Value the Value from the Domain page Tell me which existing records to change or delete, and warn me before anything that could stop my email.

See Getting started for how to reach our team about our side of things.