Connecting Domain.com domain to Ecwid Instant Site

You can connect a custom domain purchased from Domain.com with your Ecwid Instant Site, so that customers can enter your unique URL in their browser and get right to your site.

Once connected, your Ecwid Instant site will open at your domain name, via secure HTTPS connection. You don’t need to separately purchase an SSL certificate as Ecwid provides free SSL for Instant Site users. Visit your Domain.com account to manage all the domain settings and to pay for the domain name, or renew it.

Buying a domain at Domain.com

If you already own a domain name, skip to the domain setup instructions.

To buy a domain name at Domain.com:

1. Decide what domain name you want to use. You can choose any name: it might contain your brand name, reflect what you sell or it can be just a short memorable word. It’s a good idea to choose such a name that customers can easily remember and quickly type in a browser when they want to open your store.
2. Go to https://www.domain.com/ and type your desired domain name in the search field to check whether it’s available. If your domain name is unavailable, you will see other options to choose from.
3. Add the domain name to the cart and click Continue. You will be offered to buy extra services such as an email address on the same domain, SSL certificate, etc. Since you are buying a domain name for your Ecwid Instant Site, you won’t need the following services:
   • Web hosting. You don’t need it as your Ecwid Instant Site is fully hosted by Ecwid.
   • SSL Certificate. Ecwid will automatically add an SSL Certificate to your Instant site after you connect a domain, so you don’t need to buy it.
   • SiteLock. We’ve taken care of your Ecwid store security.
4. Select to pay with a credit card or PayPal account and complete the purchase.

After the purchase, an account will be created for you at Domain.com. You will receive an email with a link to set your password so that you could log into the admin area at Domain.com.

Setting up your domain in the Ecwid admin

To link your domain with your Ecwid Instant Site, you should first specify your custom domain name in your Ecwid admin.

To specify a domain name:

1. From your Ecwid admin, go to Website → Domain.
2. In the Domain name and site address block, click Connect Existing Domain.
3. In the Specify a domain name field enter your custom domain name (without www):
   

   

4. Click Next Step.
5. You will see a popup that contains an IP-address. Copy that IP-address. You will need it to set up your domain in your registrar account.
6. Click Save.

Setting up your domain in the Domain.com account

To finish linking your Ecwid Instant Site with your domain, you should make changes in your domain settings and point the domain to your Ecwid site. For that, you need to add an A record and a CNAME record in your domain host account.

To point the domain to your Ecwid site:

1. Log in to your Domain.com control panel.
2. Click Manage under the domain name that you are going to use for your Ecwid store:

3. In the menu on the left, click DNS & Nameservers:

4. Under DNS Records click +Add DNS Record:

5. In the “Type” drop-down menu, select A and fill in other fields:
   • Name: Paste your custom domain name, for example, myecwidstore.website.
   • IP address: Paste the IP address that you earlier copied from your Ecwid admin.
   • TTL: Select any value in the field, e.g. 1 hour.
   Your settings will look like this:

6. Click Add DNS to save this A-record in your domain settings. Once saved, this record will look like this:

7. Delete other '@' A-records in your domain settings. To make the custom domain work with your Ecwid store, there should be only one '@' A-Record — the one pointing to Ecwid IP-address. When you buy a domain name on Domain.com, by default it will have an A-record pointing to Domain.com default server IP address — 66.96.162.137. You need to delete this default record. Click on the three dots on the right → Delete:

8. Click +Add DNS Record to add a CNAME. That’s needed to make your website work also with the www prefix, e.g. www.myecwidstore.website.
9. In the Type drop-down menu, select CNAME and fill in other fields:
   • Name: Put here www.
   • Content: Type your custom domain name, without www, e.g. myecwidstore.website.
   • TTL: Select any value in the field, e.g. 1 hour.
   Your settings will look like this:

10. Click Add DNS. In the domain settings, your A-record and CNAME will look like this:

Now the setup is complete and you need to wait for the changes to propagate. It may take up to 48 hours for changes to take effect but usually it takes up to two hours. After that, your Ecwid store will open at the new set up domain name, with the secure HTTPS connection and a padlock, like this: