CNAME forwarding is the preferred method for connecting a domain name you’ve already purchased to your website on Site Factory.
A CNAME record redirects site visitors from the domain name they entered in their browsers to another domain name—in your case, your website running on Site Factory. Using CNAME to point to a website location instead of an actual IP address also allows Site Factory to better guarantee high-availability.
Note
Forwarding your domain name directly to a single IP address using an A Record (rather than a CNAME record) is possible, but can compromise your website’s availability.
To use a CNAME record for your domain name:
Contact your domain name registrar and learn how to manage your domain name. Typically, you can access DNS controls by logging in to your domain name registrar’s website. Your domain name registrar is your best resource when it comes to managing your domain name on their website.
Using your domain name registrar’s instructions, create the
wwwsubdomain of your domain, and any other required subdomains.Subdomains are addresses based on your second-level domain name, but prefixed with a descriptor, such as
wwworblog. For example, if your domain name isexample.com, you can createwww.example.comalong with any other required subdomains.Create a CNAME entry or record to the subdomain (and, separately, any other subdomains) to the Site Factory address for the site. For example, the DNS entry for
xyz.customer.comwould be a CNAME record pointing toxyz.customerfactory.acsitefactory.com.
Note
Not all domain registrars offer DNS services, and not all DNS services allow CNAME record changes. In these cases, you can point your domain name to your Site Factory website using an A record.
It can take a day or more for forwarding and CNAME entries to propagate across the Internet.
After you create a CNAME record for your custom domain, you must add your domain to your website on Site Factory.
Adding your domain
To add the www subdomain (and any other subdomains you created for your
domain name) to your website:
Sign in to the Site Factory Management Console on your production environment, find the website to which you want to add a custom domain name, and then open its actions menu.
Important
Domains added to non-production environments are removed when you restage a Factory to the non-production environment.
Click Manage Domains.
In the Associate a domain section, enter your domain name (such as
www.example.com) in all lowercase letters.Click Associate domain.
Your www subdomain directs visitors to your website and all its URLs will
be listed.
Some users won’t type the www when visiting your website, so forward your
domain name (such as example.com) to the www subdomain
(www.example.com) based on your domain name registrar’s instructions.
Your website’s visitors can then find your website with or without the www.
Troubleshooting domain issues
You can add domain names to only one environment. Attempting to add a domain to a second environment causes Site Factory to both fail with a logged warning message, and send an email like the following example to the user who attempted to add the domain:
The following domains couldn't be added to the [sitename] site:
[domain list]. If you want to add this domain to the [sitename]
site, remove it from the site that has claimed the domain and then add it
again at [factory URL].
To resolve the problem, remove the domain name from both environments and then add the domain name to the single, appropriate environment.