Adding a Domain to Webflow

Among the most popular ( and critical ) problems in the Webflow forum involve the process of adding a domain to Webflow - particularly if that domain is already on a live website.

Here are some tips to make the process easier.

Sygnal uses Cloudflare's free DNS service almost exclusively for our clients because of its robust capabilities and rapid updates. This is not necessary or relevant to this lesson, but if your DNS provider is giving you problems, check our migration guide here.

In most cases, your DNS will be managed by your domain registrar, for example GoDaddy. You'll login there to make your DNS changes.

Adding a domain to your Webflow site

To minimize the risk of downtime for the production site, we approach the DNS change in two parts.

Step 1 - Domain verification

You can perform this step anytime, it will not affect your production site.

In Webflow;

• Open the settings dashboard for your website, and access the Publishing tab
• Add your domain name
  • It will indicate that it is unverified

In your DNS;

• Add Webflow's TXT verification record to your DNS
  • Ignore the A and CNAME records for now

In Webflow;

• Click the Verify Domain button
  • It may take up to 24 hours for the TXT record to propagate. Some DNS's update quickly, others take forever.

The purpose of doing the verification first is that some DNS's are slow to propagate, especially with TXT records. Since this is a crucial step and does not affect your production site, we want to resolve it first.

Step 2 - Migration prep

Do this after-hours, when traffic is minimal, like midnight Sunday for your primary market.

In your DNS;

• Remove all @ A records
  • In some DNS's the default domain will be shown as an @ symbol next to the A record listing. In others, you'll see your bare domain, like mydomain.com. These indicate the same thing.
  • Do not remove other A records, prefixed with e.g. something or something.mydomain.com. These are used by other services unrelated to your website.
• Remove any www record
  • In most setups this will be a CNAME record, but it may be an A record, or it may not exist.
• Add Webflow's two @ A records, and _www record

In Webflow,

• Wait for the confirmation that the A and CNAME records have been confirmed and verified.
  • This happens very quickly for me with Cloudflare DNS, others may take much longer.
• Once Webflow indicates the connection is good, set your default domain, typically the www record
  • This is done by clicking Make default next to the www record in Webflow
• Publish your site, making certain to put a checkbox next to the new custom domain

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