Custom Domain

• Introduction
• Adding a custom domain
  • Setup DNS in order to validate SSL
  • Setup DNS in order to resolve the domain
  • Special case for apex domains
  • Setup domain redirect behavior

Introduction

By default, every site hosted on Staatic Cloud is accessible via a subdomain provided by Staatic, which has the form of [site-identifier].live.onstaatic.com.

Custom domains allow you to make your site accessible via your own, non-Staatic domain (for example www.example.com or docs.example.com).

Note: In order to setup a custom domain for your site, you will need to be able to add DNS records to the domain’s DNS zone.

Adding a custom domain

In order to add a custom domain name to your site follow these steps.

1. Go to app.staatic.com and login with your account details.
2. Click Account > Sites. Then click on the Edit Icon next to the relevant site.
3. Enter a Domain Name within the Connect Your Domain section and click Update Site.

Note: make sure to include the www. prefix in the domain name you enter in case you want your site to be available on both the apex domain and the www. subdomain. After adding your custom domain you will be able to choose the preferred domain for your site.

Note: make sure that the chosen domain name does not have a CNAME DNS record pointed to an Amazon CloudFront distribution, e.g. something.cloudfront.net. If it does, Staatic is unable to provision your site.

As soon as the changes to your site have been saved, you will be able to continue setting up your custom domain.

Setup DNS in order to validate SSL

In order to verify the ownership of the domain you will be asked to add one or more DNS records to the domain’s DNS zone. The procedure for adding DNS records depends on your DNS service provider.

Once the DNS records have been added, it may take up to 30 minutes before the Custom Domain Status changes from Pending to Active.

Setup DNS in order to resolve the domain

As soon as domain ownership has been verified and an SSL certificate has been issued for the domain, you will be able to view the additional DNS records that need to be added to the domain’s DNS zone.

Once these records have been added, the custom domain is ready and will resolve to your static WordPress site.

Note: it may take up to 2 hours before your site is accessible everywhere.

Special case for apex domains

An apex (also referred to as root, or naked) domain is a custom domain that does not contain a subdomain, for example example.com.

Apex domains on Staatic Cloud require the use of ALIAS, ANAME or flattened CNAME DNS records in order to function. Unfortunately, not all DNS providers support such record types. If your DNS provider does not allow you to set ALIAS, ANAME or flattened CNAME records, we recommend switching to an alternative DNS provider that does support such record types.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of established DNS providers that are supported.

• Cloudflare
• easyDNS
• dnsimple
• DNS Made Easy
• gandi.net
• Namecheap

Setup domain redirect behavior (recommended)

In case you have added a custom domain starting with www., Staatic will make your site available on both the root domain (e.g. example.com) as well as the www subdomain (e.g. www.example.com).

You may choose to redirect traffic from the www subdomain to the root domain or vice versa to prevent your site being accessible from two locations. The path segments of the original URL (e.g. /category/article/) will be preserved while redirecting.

In order to enable a specific domain redirect behavior follow these steps.

1. Go to app.staatic.com and login with your account details.
2. Click Account > Sites. Then click on the Edit Icon next to the relevant site.
3. Choose a behavior from Domain Redirect Behavior within the Connect Your Domain section and click Update Site.