How to Add a Custom Domain Name
A domain name is a custom address that identifies your website among other websites online. Siter allows you to add your custom domain to your website project to have a unique address for each of them.
The Siter custom domain feature is only available to paid subscription ( Personal, Professional, Agency) accounts.
To add your custom domain to your website project, click on the Settings tab and the Domains menu link in the left menu panel.
On the Domain Name input field, enter your domain name and click the Save Changes button.
A notification will slide in on the upper right corner of the page confirming your changes.
Next, you need to add an A-record to your DNS Records. An A-record is a type of DNS record that maps a domain name to the IP address of the hosting provider. It provides information about the hosting through the IP address and connects it to the domain name.
To continue, you must add an A-record for @ (or yourdomain.com) and www to 5.161.34.112. Make sure you add an entry for both @ and www.
Adding an A-record may vary depending on your domain provider's dashboard setup. If you are unsure how to add or create an A-record on your DNS dashboard, you can search for helpful articles online or contact your domain provider's support team for assistance.
Below are some guides on how to add an A-record for popular domain providers and hosts:
If your DNS settings are correctly propagated, your custom domain will automatically work with your website project when you visit the URL on the browser. However, in some cases, it may take 24 to 72 hours to get verified, depending on which domain provider your domain name was hosted.
You can also test if your domain name is properly connected with Siter by clicking on the Test domain button next to the Domain Name input field.
Adding a Subdomain
Siter also allows you to add a subdomain name of your primary custom domain name to your website project.
For example, you can create a subdomain name for your other website project at blog.examplewebsite.com while keeping your examplewebsite.com primary custom domain name.
The process of adding the primary domain name is almost as identical to the subdomain name as cited above.
After entering your subdomain name on the Domain Name input field and clicking on the Save Changes button, you must add an A-record for your subdomain name (e.g. blog.examplewebsite.com) and another A-record for www (e.g. www.blog.examplewebsite.com) to 5.161.34.112.
Troubleshooting
The most common problem when you connect a domain name is that your website doesn't appear live and instead returns a browser error or SSL error. The first thing you need to check is whether both A-records are present in your DNS. If any other A-records are present in your DNS and you notice additional A-records in your DNS, please remove them and only leave the Siter.io records.
You can check your DNS on your domain registrar, or use an external tool like https://www.whatsmydns.net/dns-lookup/a-records. In the example below, you can see two A-records. To make your website appear live, you need to remove one A-record as shown in the screenshot.
If you continue to encounter problems with your live website's appearance, please contact our support team.