Hardware & infrastructure
Connecting your own domain to your webshop
3 min
Your webshop works on a RecordFlower address from the first minute. An own domain, yourshop.com or shop.yourshop.com, makes it yours: on your business card, in your Instagram bio and in Google. Connecting it is a one-time change at your domain registrar that most shops complete in a few minutes. Your own domain is available in every plan.
Before you start
Decide which address the shop should use. A subdomain such as shop.yourshop.com is the simplest if you already have a website on yourshop.com; the two live side by side. Using the bare domain yourshop.com works too, but then your existing site has to move or go.
Have the login for your domain registrar at hand: the company where you registered the domain, such as TransIP, Antagonist, GoDaddy or Cloudflare.
Step 1: add the domain in your dashboard
Open the domain settings in your dashboard and enter the address you chose. The dashboard shows you the exact DNS record to create: a CNAME record pointing your address at your RecordFlower host name. Keep this page open.
Step 2: create the CNAME record at your registrar
Log in at your registrar and open the DNS settings for your domain. Add a record of type CNAME with the name shown in your dashboard (for shop.yourshop.com the name is usually "shop") and the value shown in your dashboard. Save.
Registrars use slightly different words for the same thing: "host" or "name" for the first field, "target", "value" or "points to" for the second. If the form asks for a TTL, the default is fine.
Bare domain
Some registrars do not allow a CNAME on the bare domain (yourshop.com without a prefix). If yours refuses, use a subdomain such as shop.yourshop.com, or ask your registrar for an ALIAS or ANAME record, which does the same thing where a CNAME is not permitted.
Step 3: wait for DNS and the certificate
A DNS change takes anywhere from a few minutes to a day to reach the whole internet; usually it is done within an hour. Your dashboard checks the record and shows when it is found. As soon as it is, the Hub requests an SSL certificate for your domain automatically, so your shop is served over https with the padlock. There is nothing to install or renew; the certificate renews itself.
Your RecordFlower address keeps working during the wait, so your shop is never offline.
Step 4: check
Open your new address in a private browser window. You should see your shop with a padlock.
Place a test order up to the payment step to see that checkout runs on your domain.
Update the shop link in your social profiles, your email signature and your Google Business profile.
Search engines
Your sitemap and your product feed follow the domain automatically. If you use Google Search Console, add a property for the new address and submit the sitemap again; the guide on Search Console explains how. Your old RecordFlower address redirects to the new one, so links that are already out there keep working.
Connecting a domain to your shop does not touch your email. Your mail records stay as they are, and you keep sending and receiving on your own address. Only the record you added changes where the shop address points.
Not resolving after a day?
Nine times out of ten the record was created on the wrong name, or with a trailing dot missing or added. Send support a screenshot of the DNS record and we look with you.