Connecting a domain you already own

If you already own a domain — something like yourbusiness.com — you can use it as your website's address instead of the platform address you started with. You keep the domain wherever you bought it; you just point it at your site.

No domain yet? Where it's available, I can buy one for you.

It's under Settings → Domain. Type it in, tick Website (and Email too), and the records come straight back, each with a copy button.

What happens when you connect one

You give us the domain, and we hand you back a short list of records to add at the company you bought it from. Once those records are live, your site starts answering at your own address.

Two things up front:

• Your bare domain and the www version both work. Connecting yourbusiness.com covers www.yourbusiness.com too — each gets its own section on the panel, and both need their records added.
• We check what's there first. If a website is already at that address — your old site, a builder you used before, the "coming soon" page your registrar put up — we tell you before changing anything. Replacing a parked placeholder is completely normal; we just want you to be the one who decides.

Adding the records

Copy the records exactly as shown — type, host, and value. Three things trip people up, most common first:

1. Add every record we list. Ownership records turn on the padlock; address records send visitors to your site. Skip the ownership records and you never get the padlock; skip the address records and it can look connected while visitors still can't reach you. If we show a choice (usually CNAME or A), pick one and add every record under it — an option can be several records. Picking A leaves other records, like mail, untouched; picking CNAME replaces whatever else is at that exact name.
2. Delete the parking records first. Most registrars auto-add a placeholder record when you buy a domain. It conflicts with the new one and usually wins, which looks like "nothing happened."
3. Don't rename or shorten anything. A long string of characters is correct — paste it whole.

How long it takes, and what "not live yet" means

Right after you save the records your domain shows as still connecting. That's normal — there are two separate waits that usually feel like one:

• Waiting for your records to show up. Registrar changes usually spread within minutes, but can take up to 48 hours.
• Waiting for the padlock. Once we can see your ownership records, the certificate is issued automatically — you never configure it. Usually minutes, occasionally longer.

The panel says which of those two waits you're in; Check again pulls a fresh answer immediately, and asking your co-founder "is my domain connected yet?" works too.

The padlock arriving isn't the same as your domain working. The certificate is issued off the ownership records alone, so it can turn up while the address records are still missing. The panel says so when that happens — "your domain still isn't pointing at your site" — instead of a green badge.

Your records stay on that screen — come back anytime to copy them. Once connected they're tucked away; they reopen on their own if your domain still isn't pointing at your site.

Your original platform address keeps working the whole time. Nothing goes dark while you wait.

Search engines are pointed at your domain automatically — see Your domain in search results.

If it still isn't live

It's almost always one of these:

• A parking or placeholder record is still in place. Delete it.
• A record was shortened, renamed, or skipped — compare it character by character against what we gave you.
• The records went on a different domain than the one you connected (common when you own several).
• It hasn't propagated yet and it's been under 48 hours.

Your co-founder checks in after a week. After two weeks we stop trying rather than leave it "connecting…" forever — restart anytime once the records are sorted; your site doesn't change meanwhile.

Disconnecting

You can disconnect at any time from the same panel — it asks you to confirm first, because it changes what visitors see. Your site goes back to answering at its platform address immediately, and the domain is free to connect again later or use elsewhere. The domain itself is always yours; disconnecting here doesn't touch your ownership of it.

What isn't covered yet

• Buying a new domain through us. For now you'll need to buy it at a registrar first, then connect it here.
• More than one domain at a time. One per business for now.

Business email on your domain is set up separately, in the same panel: see Sending email from your own domain. If mail already lives at your domain and we show an A option above, pick that one — it leaves your other records alone.