[hero title="Connect Your Domain" tagline="Point your custom domain at your new site." size="md" variant="gradient-grey" /]

Your site is already live. Access it right now at the fallback URL in your welcome email — you can log into the admin and start building before you touch DNS.

What you'll need

  • Access to the DNS control panel for your domain (at your registrar — GoDaddy, Cloudflare, Namecheap, 123-Reg, etc.)
  • About 5 minutes to add two records
  • A little patience for DNS propagation (usually 5–60 minutes, occasionally longer)

The two records you need

Add these two A records at your DNS provider:

Type Name Value TTL
A @ 82.165.196.228 Automatic
A www 82.165.196.228 Automatic

@ means "the domain itself" (e.g. mybusiness.co.uk). www covers the www. version (www.mybusiness.co.uk). You need both so the site works with or without the www. prefix.

TLS certificate — we handle it. Within about 2 minutes of the first request reaching our servers, Let's Encrypt issues a certificate automatically. You don't need to install anything.

How long does it take?

  • Typical: 5–15 minutes once you save the records
  • Occasional: 1–4 hours
  • Worst case: up to 48 hours (rare, and usually only for brand-new domains)

You can check propagation status at whatsmydns.net — paste in your domain and look for the servers showing our IP.

Provider-specific notes

Cloudflare's default proxy mode (orange cloud) interferes with our automatic TLS certificate issuance during initial setup.

Do this for the first 24 hours:

  1. Add the two A records as shown above
  2. Click the orange cloud so it becomes a grey cloud (DNS only)
  3. Wait for the site to load over HTTPS
  4. After 24 hours you can turn the orange cloud back on if you want Cloudflare's CDN/firewall

If you see a TLS error in the first few minutes, that's expected — our servers haven't issued the certificate yet.

  1. Log in to GoDaddy and go to your Domain Control Center
  2. Click DNS on your domain
  3. Find any existing A record for @ and click the pencil to edit it — change Points to to 82.165.196.228. If there isn't one, click Add and set Type to A, Name to @, Value to 82.165.196.228
  4. Do the same for Name www
  5. Save — GoDaddy usually propagates within 1 hour

GoDaddy's default parking page is an A record — replacing it is the main thing to watch for.

  1. Log in to Namecheap and go to Domain List
  2. Click Manage on your domain, then Advanced DNS
  3. Delete any existing A records that point to Namecheap parking pages
  4. Click Add New Record — Type: A Record, Host: @, Value: 82.165.196.228, TTL: Automatic
  5. Add another — Type: A Record, Host: www, Value: 82.165.196.228
  6. Save (click the green checkmark on each row)

  1. Log in to 123-Reg and go to your Control Panel
  2. Select your domain and click Manage DNS
  3. In Advanced DNS, add an A record with Hostname @ (or leave blank) and IP 82.165.196.228
  4. Add another with Hostname www and the same IP
  5. 123-Reg sometimes takes a few hours — be patient

The details vary but the two records are the same everywhere:

  • One A record for the apex (name @ or sometimes blank) → 82.165.196.228
  • One A record for www → 82.165.196.228

If your provider only supports CNAME records at the apex (rare), contact us and we'll sort it together.

Troubleshooting

Most common causes:

  1. DNS hasn't propagated yet. Wait 15 minutes and try again. Check whatsmydns.net with your domain — the values should show 82.165.196.228 from most locations.
  2. Browser/DNS cache. Try in a private/incognito window, or clear your DNS cache: ipconfig /flushdns (Windows) or sudo dscacheutil -flushcache (macOS).
  3. Existing records conflict. If you see the old parking page from your registrar, there's a leftover A record pointing elsewhere. Delete it.

This is normal for the first few minutes after DNS resolves to our servers. We need a successful HTTP request at your domain to trigger certificate issuance from Let's Encrypt. The cert usually lands within 2 minutes of the first request. Refresh in a minute or two.

If the error persists for more than 30 minutes after DNS propagation, contact us — we'll check the certificate issuance logs.

Cloudflare's orange-cloud proxy hides the request from Let's Encrypt, so the certificate can't be issued. Switch the A records to DNS only (grey cloud), wait for the cert to issue, then you can re-enable the proxy.

Yes. Your welcome email contains a fallback URL in the form https://<your-slug>.sites.dommajs.org. That URL works immediately and keeps working forever, even after your custom domain is live. You can log in, build pages, and configure settings straight away.

Stuck? Email support@dommajs.org with your domain and we'll take a look.