Try it Free
Sign Up Now

Support

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors

Configuring Your Domain Name

Estimated reading time: 5 min
Contents
Clients must use the single domain name provided to us at sign up for your Congregate website. If for some reason you need to replace your domain name with us, you must contact our team in order to replace/activate the new domain name.

Your domain name is completely owned and managed by you, our client. Everything related to your domain name, management, and configuration takes place with your domain name registrar and not with Congregate. Your domain name registrar is the company you purchased your domain through and to whom you pay its renewals (e.g., GoDaddy or Network Solutions). Domain names cannot be transferred to Congregate and Congregate is not a domain name registrar.

DNS (Fully Managed) vs. A-Record (Self-Managed) Changes

To point your domain name to Congregate and launch your website, you need to determine which is better for your particular setup: having Congregate manage your DNS or self-managing your DNS.

    • If you are using Congregate for your website, email, and any other web-related services, Congregate can fully manage your DNS and integrate Cloudflare for speed and protection. Note: this is the simplest and most popular choice.
    • If you are using a third-party email service (e.g., Microsoft- or Google-powered email) or other third-party services, you must self-manage your DNS records.
    • If you wish to add or manage any custom CNAME, TXT, MX records, etc., you must self-manage your DNS records.

Congregate Fully Managed DNS

    1. If you have confirmed our DNS management is the best course of action based on the information above, you’ll need to log in to your domain name registrar’s website/your domain name control panel to replace the name servers on your domain name. If you are unfamiliar with this process, contact your domain registrar to assist with your changes or to have them make the changes for you. Unfortunately, each registrar is different and we are not able to provide detailed instructions for such changes.
    2. There should be two different name servers already associated with your domain name. You will need to replace (not add) both servers with the following:
      Contact us for the exact name servers required for your account. Congregate’s DNS services are powered by Cloudflare and are unique to each account. 
    3. After the update is made, your domain name should only show the two servers provided to you. If there are any additional name servers still associated with your domain name, please remove them.
    4. Please contact us when you’ve completed these steps so our team can verify them and confirm the timely generation of your free SSL certificate.
    5. After the update is made, it can take some time for your changes to propagate throughout the entire internet. This is normal behavior. The secure version of your website (utilizing “https”, the secure icon in your browser, and an SSL certificate) will also take time to propagate throughout the entire internet. This is normal behavior. After propagation is complete, your website will show as “secure” and utilize our free, included SSL certificate. Until then, your website may show as “insecure.”
    6. Use a website such as http://whois.icann.org to look up your domain name and confirm your name server changes have been made. Remember your changes might take time to appear.

Self-Managed DNS/A-Record via Cloudflare

Self-Managed DNS with Cloudflare

We highly and strongly recommend the use of Cloudflare to manage your DNS so you can utilize Cloudflare’s free protections with your Congregate site. We cannot add them for you since we do not manage your DNS. Cloudflare’s free plan provides enterprise-grade performance and security features without altering your domain name provider, registration, or ownership — you are in full control of your domain name and its management. By routing traffic through its global content delivery network, Cloudflare ensures that your page load time is near instant for visitors as Cloudflare continually boasts the fastest DNS resolutions.

In addition to performance and arguably most important, Cloudflare offers critical protection against common online threats including DDoS attacks, malicious bots, abusive IPs, and automated AI scraping of your content. The majority of our clients already utilize Cloudflare because we manage their DNS and integrate Cloudflare directly. If you choose not to use Cloudflare and your DNS provider does not provide equivalent services – which require proxying – Congregate cannot deliver these protections for you, leaving your site more vulnerable to risks that Cloudflare proactively mitigates.

Therefore, if you keep your current DNS provider and simply point to our server via an A-record, none of these performance and security features will be afforded to you. While we would never force anyone to change DNS providers, we wish to make the consequences and benefits very clear as all other Congregate-managed sites receive these important protections, proxying, and speed increases through our direct integration with Cloudflare.

    1. If you have confirmed self-managing your DNS is the best course of action based on the information above, please utilize Cloudflare to manage your own DNS records. If you don’t already have a Cloudflare account, register for a free account. Cloudflare is completely free and consistently ranks number one in terms of speed and global response time for DNS resolution. Cloudflare provides your website with DNS proxying, scraping protection, rate limiting/protection, DDoS protection, and human validation/bot protection – all of which are paramount to a safe, fast, and secure website.
      • Go to https://dash.cloudflare.com/sign-up
      • Create a free account with your email address
      • After logging in, click “Add a Site”
      • Enter the domain name you use with Congregate (the one specified at sign-up or a replacement domain name already approved by our team) and click “Continue”
      • Choose the “Free Plan” and click “Continue”
      • Once Cloudflare finishes scanning your current records, Cloudflare will give you two new name servers to use
      • Log in to your domain provider’s website (the company where you bought your domain — like GoDaddy, Namecheap, etc.) or contact them via telephone/online chat to help you change the “name servers” on your domain name
      • Go to your domain settings and find where it says “name servers”
      • Replace your current nameservers with the two servers Cloudflare provided. Do not simply add the new name servers, you must replace them with the current name servers. You should only have the two Cloudflare name servers associated with your domain name.
      • Save your changes
    2. You’ll now need to change the A-record IP address to point to Congregate. Inside your Cloudflare account, click on your domain name, and go to the “DNS” section.
    3. Find the main A-record for your domain name and click “Edit”
    4. Replace the current IP address with this new IP address. Save your changes.
      Contact us for the exact A-record IP address required for your account. IP addresses can vary per account.
    5. Note: to ensure  both “www.yourdomainname.com” and “yourdomainname.com” function, you must ensure you have a CNAME record for “www”. If there is not a www CNAME record in your DNS already, click “Add Record”, choose CNAME as its type, enter “www” for its name, and then enter your domain name for its target. Save your changes.
    6. Please contact us when you’ve completed these steps so our team can verify them and confirm the timely generation of your free SSL certificate.
    7. After the update is made, it can take some time for your changes to propagate throughout the entire internet. This is normal behavior. The secure version of your website (utilizing “https”, the secure icon in your browser, and an SSL certificate) will also take time to propagate throughout the entire internet. This is normal behavior. After propagation is complete, your website will show as “secure” and utilize our free, included SSL certificate. Until then, your website may show as “insecure.”
    8. Use a website such as http://whois.icann.org to look up your domain name and confirm your name server changes have been made. Remember your changes might take time to appear.

Changing Domain Names

If for some reason you should need to replace or change your domain name, please contact our support team first. You can only have one primary domain name on your account and it must be added to our systems before it can be used in conjunction with your account.

Was this documentation helpful?
No