How to make your website live on your domain name/website address
In order to make your website live you will need to do the following:
Login to your domain name system account (DNS) and make the following changes yourself, or pass these instructions onto your domain name registrar (DNS provider) or Internal IT company if they manage this on your behalf:
Setup your subdomain (www) as a CNAME pointing to live.webdadi.net - remember to check to see if there is a CNAME record already for the subdomain www and if there is be sure to edit the record to point to live.webdadi.net and not try to create a new one!
If you have a subdomain for commercial, agricultural, and/or international, additionally set these up as a CNAME pointing to live.webdadi.net. Remember to edit any existing subdomains rather than create new ones (if you are not using a commercial, agricultural, or international subdomain, please ignore step 2 and move to step 3)
Ensure you have no A records setup for any root domain or subdomain (therefore www, commercial, agricultural and international subdomains should not have any A records setup). If there is an A record for @ (your root domain) that says PARKED, this record entry is ok and you can leave it, but if the A @ record instead has an IP address assigned to it not PARKED, you must delete it.
We recommend where possible to update your TTL settings to be 5 minutes or as frequent as possible. This setting outlines how quickly your changes take effect
Please note, the instructions above do not affect your root domain. If you want to setup your root domain (the non www. version of your website) to also point at our servers, please read the FAQs below for further instructions
Please note, by making these changes you are confirming that you are happy for you website to be put live.
FAQs
When should I make these changes?
You can make your website live at any time. However, we recommend you do not make these changes on a Friday or over the weekend. Webdadi’s office hours are Monday - Friday, 9am - 5:30pm, so we cannot help or support you outside of these hours.
It’s also best if you give us advanced warning before making these changes.
How long does it take?
Once you’ve made the changes, it can take some time depending on your domain name registrar's settings. DNS changes take time to propagate, meaning the changes have to take effect over a global network of servers which can take up to 24 hours.
Do you only support CNAMES?
Yes, Webdadi only support the use of CNAMES.
Why do you only support CNAMES?
It allows us to allows to give you advanced security through Cloudflare that does not come as standard with most website providers.
In addition, it is recommended that websites should have the primary hostname as www. as this is the designator for world wide web.
Why don’t you allow Root Domains?
Root domains require an A record targeted to a specific IP address. IPs should not be in the public domain, and we cannot guarantee an IPs security once it has been forwarded to third parties. This is a significant security threat, and there has been an increase in DDOS attacks specifically targeting IP addresses which we have taken steps to counter by only using CNAMES.
In brief, using CNAMES is more secure and allows us to give you better protection for your website.
What if I need to use a Root Domain?
You must submit the following online form confirming the root domain you wish to setup before proceeding with any of the steps below as your website is only setup to use the www sub domain by default. We will then confirm in writing once we have amended your website setup to support the root domain.
You can then proceed with one of two options:
Option 1
Your domain provider may support CNAME flattening. However, each domain provider varies in the services they offer. If your current domain name registrar does not support CNAME flattening then your domain can be transferred to Cloud Flare from your current domain provider. Cloudflare then allow CNAME flattening which will allow live.webdadi.net to be added to the root domain. There may be additional costs to switch your domain to Cloudflare depending on the options you choose. You would need to get a quote directly from them as to the costs as they are a third party supplier.
Option 2
Alternatively, you can keep your domain with your current domain provider and simply setup a free Cloudflare account purely for the purposes of CNAME flattening. The following guide explains how to do this https://webdadi.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/PKB/pages/897908737
The above options are for advanced users only and we recommend using a third party to manage your DNS. Please note, Webdadi do not manage your DNS. You should consult with your domain name provider and any third parties who run your DNS for further help, support and confirmation of successful setup.
How is a root domain different to a subdomain?
Your root domain is your URL address without the www. eg webdadi.com
A sub domain is anything which proceeds this, so www.
Keywords: DNS change, changing DNS, domain name settings, changing domain name settings