Connecting your own domain

Every ClickWhale website comes with a free address it can always be reached on. Putting it on a domain of your own (yourcompany.com instead of that address) is a paid feature. You can buy a domain through us, or connect one you already have. The second route happens partly outside ClickWhale, at whoever registered your domain.

Adding a domain needs an active subscription. On a trial your website stays on its free address, and the section explains that instead of offering the buttons. A domain can also be registered as part of the subscription order. See Your subscription, and what happens when it runs out.

Two ways to get a domain onto your website

You can mix them freely, and nothing limits how many domains one website carries.

Buying a domain through us

Buy a domain opens a search screen. Type the name you want (without an extension is fine) and press Search. We check it against every extension we register, plus the exact one you typed. Each result shows Available or Taken and its price per year; Add puts it in Your selection on the right, which totals it up for you.

Place order takes you to the payment screen. Because you already have a subscription, there is nothing to fill in. The invoice goes to the details you gave us before.

A new domain is not available straight away. The registration only runs after the payment has actually settled. Until it does, the domain appears in your list with the status Being registered and no buttons on it. That is not a fault and there is nothing to click. It clears itself.

Once registered, the domain is set up here automatically: we hold its DNS, so there is nothing for you to do at a registrar.

Connecting a domain you already own

Add domain asks for the name and nothing else. Enter it as example.com, no http://, no www., no path. A domain can only be linked to one ClickWhale website at a time.

The domain then appears in the list. Click its row to expand it, and under What to add at your domain provider you'll find the two records you need to add, with the exact values printed out:

1. A TXT record, carrying a verification token that looks like clickwhale-site-verification= followed by a long string. This proves the domain is yours. It changes nothing about where your current website is served from, so you can add it today even if you aren't ready to move yet. Once the domain is live you can remove it again.

2. An A record, pointing at the IP address shown on screen. This is the one that actually moves your website over, so do it when you're ready. If two addresses are listed, either works. Use the first unless your provider asks for something specific.

Add the TXT record first: once ownership is proven, everything (including the security certificate) is ready for the moment you switch the A record.

Domain statuses

Expand a row and the first line is its Status. In order:

ClickWhale re-checks on its own. The row says We check every few minutes, and tells you the time of the last check. A record you just added can take up to an hour to be visible everywhere, so there is usually nothing to do but wait.

Check DNS, on the row's action line, is for the moment you have just pressed Save at your registrar and want an answer now. It doesn't just say pass or fail: it tells you what it actually found, for example the A record points to 203.0.113.9, it needs to point to …. The button is limited to once every 30 seconds per domain, so a second click straight after the first is refused.

The main address

One domain on a website is its main URL, marked with a badge. It's the address the website advertises as itself: what search engines are pointed at, and what the portal's Visit site button opens. Once a main domain is live, the free address your website came with redirects to it, so the same page is never served at two addresses.

Make main URL appears on any domain that is live, switched on, and not the free address.

Turning a domain off, and removing one

Turn off takes a domain out of service without giving it up: the registration stays, the row stays, and Turn on puts it straight back. It's what you want when you're moving a domain to a different site of yours. A domain that ClickWhale has disabled has no button at all. That's a support matter rather than something to switch back yourself.

Remove is offered only for a domain you brought yourself, and never for the main one. It asks for confirmation first and tells you what it does and doesn't do:

• Your registration is not cancelled. The domain stays yours, any subscription for it keeps running, and you can point it at another website or add it here again later.
• The security certificate is removed from the web server. Adding the domain again issues a new one.
• Mailboxes on the domain are not deleted. They keep receiving mail, but you can no longer manage them from the portal. Ask us if you want them removed.

A domain you bought through us can't be removed here at all. Contact us to cancel or move it.

Sending email from your domain

Once a domain is Live, its row grows an Email from this domain block. Turning it on lets your website's email (contact form notifications, order confirmations) go out from your own domain instead of ours, and asks you for one more DNS record (an SPF record) to authorise it. It's offered only after the domain is live.

Common issues