Custom domains can be transferred or pointed to Yola. In this article, you are going to learn how to point a domain to your Yola website by changing the domain’s DNS records (CNAME and A record). This way your custom domain remains registered with your domain provider but is connected to your Yola website.
Please note: Yola website can be published to a pointed domain when your account has one of our hosting packages (Yola Bronze, Yola Silver, or Yola Gold).
Step 1: Amend CNAME and A records
To point your domain located at another provider to Yola, you will need to amend CNAME and A records to make sure that your domain is routing to Yola's servers. For that you will need to access your domain's DNS management area on the side of your provider and enter the information below:
CNAME record:
- Name: www or www.yourdomainname.com
- Value: syndicatedhosting.yolasite.net.
A record:
- Name: @ or yourdomainname.com
- Value: 184.72.229.176
Make sure to replace yourdomainname.com with your actual domain name when adding the records.
Each domain provider has different instructions when it comes to adding DNS records. For instance, with some providers you may need only www as the CNAME Name record, others require your domain name with www appended, e.g. www.yourdomainname.com. We strongly recommend checking your provider's requirements before adding DNS records or contacting them directly for advice.
Once you have added the records please allow some time for DNS changes to propagate worldwide. It might take up to 48 hours but usually takes less.
Step 2: Connect your domain
Then follow these steps to connect your domain to a Yola-built site:
1. In My Yola management area, go to the Domains tab:
2. Scroll down and expand the Want to keep your domain registered with another registrar? section:
3. Enter your domain name into the Domain field.
4. Select the site which you want to use with this domain in the Use this domain for drop-down list:
5. Click Add.
Please note: Your website has to be published to appear on the list.
It may take a couple of minutes for our system to establish the connection, but if there is no success message after 5-10 minutes, please contact our customer support team so they could check your domain DNS records and guide you further if required.
If you face any difficulties, please consider transferring your domain (available only for .com, .net, .biz, and .org domain extensions) to Yola so we can manage your domain’s DNS records. Here's a tutorial with more information: Transferring a domain to Yola.
FAQ
My domain is not pointing. What should I do?
Pointing usually takes 5-10 minutes. If the progress is not changing, please check if A and CNAME records were entered correctly. Make sure nothing is misspelled.
Once your custom domain has been successfully connected to the website it might take some time for the site to be online.
Do I add a CNAME record or change the www record?
In some cases, you will need to change the www record for your custom domain. Always check the instructions of your domain name provider before making changes.