Add your own domain

To connect a domain, open your project's Domains tab and choose Add a domain. You prove the domain is yours, point it at us, and its SSL certificate comes by itself on the first visit. The first domain you add becomes the project's main domain.

Three ways to connect it

With our nameservers, see DNS. With Cloudflare, see Connect Cloudflare. The rest of this page is about adding records yourself.

Add records yourself

1. Open your project, then Domains, then Add a domain.

2. Type the domain, like duka.co.tz, choose Add records yourself, then Continue.

3. The page shows two kinds of records to add where your domain's DNS lives:

   • A (and AAAA where the location has an IPv6 address): sends visitors to us. Add them exactly as shown.

   • TXT at _domain-verify: proves the domain is yours, so nobody else can connect it. Its value starts with domain-verify=.

4. Save them at your DNS host, then come back. We check every minute, and the page updates by itself. Choose Refresh to check now.

The domain goes through: waiting for DNS, points here, getting SSL, live. When the records are right, the page says Set up correctly.

Keep the TXT record. We check the proof again over time, and a domain whose TXT record is gone at two checks in a row stops working.

Example: Asha connects duka.co.tz

Asha's shop runs on its free address, duka-7h3k.tanzahost.co. She adds duka.co.tz with Add records yourself. The page shows an A record for @ and a TXT record for _domain-verify with its code. She logs in to her .co.tz registrar's DNS page, adds both, and saves.

A few minutes later, the page says it points here. Her first visit to https://duka.co.tz gets its SSL certificate, and the domain is live. Because it's her main domain, www.duka.co.tz was added with it, and redirects to duka.co.tz; she adds its A record too. And duka-7h3k.tanzahost.co now redirects to duka.co.tz.

www and the free address

• www: when your main domain is a whole domain like duka.co.tz, its www address comes with it and redirects to it. To make www the main address instead, edit the two so the plain domain redirects to www.

• http: every visit to http:// goes to https://, always.

• The free address permanently redirects (301) to your main domain once it's live, so search engines see one site, not two. To keep both, edit the domain and switch off Free address redirects here.

Extra domains

A project has one main domain, and can have more: duka.com and duka.tz beside duka.co.tz, for example. Each one needs its own proof. Choose Edit on a domain to decide what it does:

• Redirect to another of the project's domains, keeping the page: duka.com/cart goes to duka.co.tz/cart. A redirect costs nothing.

• Show an app: visitors see an app of the project at that address.

A subdomain of a proven domain in the same project, like shop.duka.co.tz, needs no proof of its own, only its A records.

Rules

• A domain and everything under it belongs to one project only.

• A project can have up to 50 domains, and add up to 20 a day.

• A domain added and never proven holds its name against other projects for 7 days only.

Remove a domain

Choose Edit, then Remove domain. It stops at once. Visitors whose DNS still points here see a neutral page, never another site. Its certificate isn't renewed.

When it doesn't work

• Waiting for the TXT record: check the name is _domain-verify (many DNS hosts add your domain to the end for you), and the value is pasted whole.

• It points somewhere else: an old A record is still there. Remove every A and AAAA record for that name except ours.

• Still the old site: DNS changes can take a few hours to reach every network.