Connecting Bluehost domain to your Ecwid Instant Site

You can connect a custom domain purchased from Bluehost 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 Bluehost account to manage all the domain settings and to pay for the domain name, or renew it.

Step 1. 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.

Step 2. Setting up your domain in the Bluehost 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. Sign into your Bluehost account.
2. Click Domains.
3. In the Manage dropdown, next to the domain that you’re linking to your Ecwid site, select DNS:

4. Scroll down to A (Host) and click Add record:

5. Add the data for this A record:
   • In Host Record, enter @.
   • In Points to, enter the IP address that you’ve copied earlier from your Ecwid admin.
   • Leave TTL as 4 hours.
   • Click Save.

6. Now scroll to CNAME and click Add record:

7. Add the data for this CNAME record:
   • In the Host Record field, enter the subdomain www.
   • In the Points To field, enter your root domain (it’s mynice.site in our example).
   • Leave TTL as 4 hours.
   • Click Save.

That’s it! You’ve added both records for your domain:

Now you should wait a bit till the DNS changes propagate. Usually it takes no longer than two hours, but in some cases you might need to wait 24-48 hours till the new DNS records become active. After that, your Instant Site will be available at your own domain when customers enter the corresponding URL in their browser.