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scottplan on 1192975608|%e %b %Y|agohover, last edited by 
Jeimss on 1253207004|%e %b %Y at %H:%M |agohover
Step-by-Step Guide to Setting Up a Custom Domain
So I’m really happy with my wikidot site, ABC.wikidot.com1. But I’d really like it to appear in its own domain: XYZ.com. Although my site will still be located on Wikidot’s servers and it will still be fully available at ABC.wikidot.com, I want my users to think of my site as XYZ.com and see its content there.
First I have to acquire XYZ.com. There are many sites where I can register XYZ for a fee. I have no interest in promoting any one service here, but I decide to go with godaddy.com. So I’ll refer to them for the sake of clarity.
From godaddy, I reserve XYZ.com for a period of years. I also decide to reserve XYZ.org and XYZ.net, (because they’re bound to be worth something someday…)
I receive my godaddy account number by email, and I log into my account.
Now here’s important information. Changes I’m about to make sometimes take awhile to show up on the internet. I really want to test the results of my new settings now, but results can take a long time to take hold. As a complete novice, my lack of faith and patience makes for a very frustrating day… But now I can recreate the experience minus the hassle.
First I want to point XYZ.org and XYZ.net to XYZ.com, so that everything redirects to the main site.
In godaddy’s Domain Control Center (home), I see all three of my new domains.
- I click on XYZ.org to access its details.
- I click on the link under “forwarding”
- I enable forwarding, and I insert the target site: http://XYZ.com
- I select “301 moved permanently”
- I save the changes.
- I make my way back to the Domain Control Center (home) and go through the same steps to redirect XYZ.net.
Now I want to point XYZ.com to ABC.wikidot.com.
- I click “Total DNS Control”, which opens up the control panel for the domain.
- Under A(host), I select “edit”
- I leave the @ under “host”, but I change the IP number under “points to” to Wikidot’s IP: 74.86.235.236 (If you have reason to think Wikidot's IP address has changed, try pinging www.wikidot.com.)
- I save that record.
- Under CNAMES(aliases), I edit the www subdomain so that it points to “wikidot.com”. To do this, I leave the "www" under the Host, but write only "wikidot.com" under Points To.
- I save that record.
When I'm done, it should look something like this:
Next I need to tell wikidot about my new XYZ domain.
- I log in to the site manager: ABC.wikidot.com/admin:manage
- I click on the third link in the sidebar: “custom domain”
- In the custom domain field, I insert “XYZ.com”
- In the (optional) 301 redirect field, I insert “www.XYZ.com” This way, anyone who types the www subdomain in their web browser will end up at the same place.
- You have the option to check a box to "Use the custom domain as the only domain for this site." If you leave this box un-checked, users can access the site either through the new domain or the Wikidot address. If you check the box, you risk getting into trouble if your domain expires or something else goes askew.
- I save changes
- and I wait… and have great faith… Better yet, I go for a walk and am supremely content when I come back to find everything in perfect working order.
XYZ.com now looks and works exactly the same as ABC.wikidot.com. Even better, www.XYZ.com switches gracefully in my browser’s address bar to XYZ.com, as do XYZ.org and XYZ.net and all their subdomain variants.
Pure bliss.
Author
Is this still valid? I just checked my godaddy acp and I did not see a "total DNS Control" link.
Freelance SEO
Search Engine Placement Services
Hey Whane — it's still there:
Ah, thanks for that. I was having a hard time finding that link.
Search Engine Placement Services
I can see it in my friend's wiki, but it's missing from mine. I thought i saw that it was a bug and the link disappeared the other day - but now I can't find that post - and I just updated godaddy but not my wiki. Any ideas???
Custom Domain has become a pro feature. Pro features must be paid for, so if you want custom domain, you must purchase the pro features.
Timothy Foster — My Blog ~ Here to help and to serve. PM me if you have a question or need a site.
This is silly, I would pay a tenner a year for the option but not 60dollars !
Custom Domain is the only option which is valuable for persons with a personal wiki (e.g artists) … all the other options are not important !
But you are willing to pay a provider for the redirect facility only? That is strange …
Service is my success. My webtips:www.blender.org, www.zusi.de (Demo-Video)
Wollen Sie Wikidot helfen im deutschen » Handbuch ?
Hmm. That's $60 a year. I only have a one page site! I think I'm going to have to host this wiki elsewhere. Crap!
But you are willing to pay a provider for the redirect facility only? That is strange …
Service is my success. My webtips:www.blender.org, www.zusi.de (Demo-Video)
Wollen Sie Wikidot helfen im deutschen » Handbuch ?
No, I paid google $10 to register the domain and they will forward it for free.
hi Alison
has i understand it there is a hell of a lot of a difference between forwarding a url and custom domain.
So as you only have one page you probably don't need any more than a url redirect.
Hello!
I tried the custom domain setting as well. Now I have some questions
I registered a domain praemien-teilen24.de at euserv - my wikidot.com domain is www.praemien-teilen.wikidot.com.
In the euserv control panel i can simply make a domain redirect praemien-teilen24.de to www.praemien-teilen.wikidot.com and whenever someone types praemien-teilen24.de in the browser the wiki site will show up - but www.praemien-teilen.wikidot.com will appear in the browser address line.
For me this is awful because i want to be recognized as a top level domain. I hoped that even subpages like www.praemien-teilen.wikidot.com/comdirect would appear like www.praemien-teilen24.de/comdirect in the adress line.
So I figured that if I apply the custom domain setting with a pro account (i am testing it right now), then in my browser would appear www.praemien-teilen24.de instead of www.praemien-teilen.wikidot.com - but although i went through the above tutorial this will not happen …
So just be clear. Do i need to configure the domain redirect at euserv or only the CNAME?
Right now my configuration looks like that
*.praemien-teilen24.de A 67.228.37.26 86400
praemien-teilen24.de A 67.228.37.26 86400
praemien-teilen24.de CNAME wikidot.com 86400
www.praemien-teilen24.de CNAME wikidot.com 86400
Under the admin:manage -> custom domain settting i inserted
custom domain: praemien-teilen24.de
redirect: www.praemien-teilen24.de
Is this all correct? Because it won't work. Will the pages at the end look like www.praemien-teilen24.de/comdirect or still with the wikidot subdomain? Does the site appear in the google search results with praemien-teilen24.de or with www.praemien-teilen.wikidot.com?
Thanks fors your help
Well, I think that everything is ok, when I type in http://praemien-teilen24.de/ it goes to wikidot.com but the address is still *.de. If I click on some links, I am still at praemien-teilen24.de address, not on *.wikidot.com.
Wikidot Team
Glad it works for you - and I hope everyone else …. I can't reach http://praemien-teilen24.de/ at all.
So I guess I have to wait until the DNS-Server that is responsible for me is updating?
http://praemien-teilen24.de/system:list-all-pages
http://praemien-teilen24.de/
http://praemien-teilen24.de/banken
http://praemien-teilen24.de/versicherungen
and a load of others
are all ok for me in both ie and ff
As you said, probably you have to wait for DNS to propagate changes. Both www and w/o www works perfectly. So I think that your problem is soved :)
Wikidot Team
thanks for the awesome and easy to understand guide. i got my domain up and running very fast.
Excellent advice! I only have one small problem. In site manager » custom domains, I inserted the following:
Custom Domain: southwestimagebank.org
301 redirects: www.southwestimagebank.org
Waiting until the end of the day, I decided I would test things.
Entered regular domain - www.swib.wikidot.com » works fine.
Then tried - swib.wikidot.com » fine.
Then tried the new domain - southwestimagebank.org » that works fine too.
But when I enter www.southwestimagebank in to my web browser an error message appears saying the link is broken! Tried changing the settings to CD: www.southwestimagebank.org and 301 redirects to southwestimagebank.org but this doesn't work either and now I am unable to make any changes at all.
I know I shouldn't worry about it, but most of my users will undoubtedly assume there is a www. before the website name, don't want them to be disappointed with a broken link!
Am I doing something wrong?
this is what i have in my wikidot account.
do you have similar?
Yes, I have this:
Custom domain:southwestimagebank.org
Use the custom domain as the only domain for this site (not selected)
301 redirect: www.southwestimagebank.org
Sorry to be a nuisance… although wikidot is all about learning skills though the sharing of ideas eh!
In my DNS control panel, I've got the www CNAME pointed to @ — do you? Maybe that makes a difference. Otherwise I'm stumped.
Hi Scottplan,
In my DNS Control panel, I have the following:
A (Host) » Host Name: "@" » Points to IP Address: "67.228.37.28"
Under CNAMES (Aliases) » Alias Name: "wikidot.com" » Points to Host Name: "@"
Should the CNAMES (Aliases) » Alias Name be my NEW website name? with the full www prefix or without? I believe I may have tried this only for an error message to appear.
When I return to the Domain Details Page under the TOTAL DNS (available) the settings appear as:
ARecord @ 67.228.37.26
CNAME wikidot.com @
By the way, I have not forwarded the domain as I only have one "southwestimagebank.org" which I link to wikidot via site manager etc. etc.
MUCH appreciation for any assistance you can offer! Thanks.
Best I can offer is to make everything like mine, because… mine works, and I don't understand this stuff enough to be really creative about it. This how-to assumes you've left the control panel pretty much as you found it when you registered the domain.
That sounds creative. I'd suggest deleting that alias.
Do you have a www alias in your DNS control panel? If not, then edit the "wikidot.com" alias to say "www", or create a new www alias. The www alias should point to "@".
Be aware that your site will likely take a massive plunge in google hits when you replace your wikidot domain with a custom domain. For me, this meant going from ~ 1400 google referrals per day to ~ 200 right after I made the switch. I assume your ranking must be re-built from scratch. Is this true?
It's not clear to me. Ours has had this dual address for some time (wikidot subdomain and custom domain), and I just recently flipped the switch to direct everything to the custom domain. It works really well, but there may have been some google impact.
Not sure how I'd measure it. Most of our traffic is email driven, self-directed, and word of mouth.
Hi,
Very new here, but I've read all the posts about custom domains. We have applied for educational status, and we do want to use a custom domain name.
If educational sites do not qualify for custom domain names, we will switch to a pro plan. Does anyone know about the ed sites and domains?
Thanks,
Claudia
I dunno. Ask
Squark.
I've done it freely through a redirect at my domain registrant (godaddy.com). so I don't have to pay for PRO features (as this post describes).
Here's the document with instructions.
Cheers.
Mario.
Hi all. This is a really great How-To. But I'm running into a few problems. Specifically, when I try to create the custom domain from my Wikidot control panel, I get the error message:
So, a few questions from the uninitiated…
Following the instructions exactly, I got the same description in my DNS as Stacey Dyer did (above). It looks like this:
If this isn't correct, perhaps an edit of the How-To is in order to make things more clear. I'm happy to do it once I figure this out!
-Stacy
You can also do CNAME wildcarding, so that any subdomain of your domain works as a custom domain. This is the zone file I typically use:
The Wikidot Blog | My other works
Thanks, Pieter. The wildcard stuff is a bit over my head. I made a few changes on GoDaddy, so we'll see how it goes. My ping brought back a different IP address than the one listed here. On a side note, the instructions in the Site Admin for Custom Domain say we should enter "wikidot.com" for the CNAME, not "www.wikidot.com" and they do not imply that the IP address might change but rather list the 67 one as definitive. Perhaps this needs to be updated?
Not understanding this stuff too much, if the Wikidot IP addresses changes again, will the custom domain no longer work until we update the information in our domain manager?
The Site Admin is wrong, yes, we fixed that today (I think, it was in progress anyhow).
Did not want to scare you about the IP address changing. We try to minimize that and will make sure to tell everyone if it happens. If you use wikidot.com or www.wikidot.com (same thing) for the CNAME, your subdomains will always work.
The root domain cannot use a CNAME record but must use an A record, which requires an IP address. So, usually the safest is to define your custom domain as "www.example.com" and a 301 redirect on "example.com". Thus if people type the root domain they are forwarded to the www subdomain. If the IP address does change (this happened during our crisis last week, for a day or two) the redirect breaks but the www still works.
Does that clarify it?
The Wikidot Blog | My other works
@pieterh,
Is this the way you configured the domain below?
Yes, this is how I configured those domains.
The Wikidot Blog | My other works
Thanks for this domain :-)
Thanks again for all your help. After much drama (principally because I had a lot of down time in between my tiny tweaks), everything is now working—yay!! Once I switched the positions of the "www" and the "wikidot.com" under CName and adjusted the IP address, I could save the new domain name in the Site Manager without getting the error message.
Unfortunately, I still couldn't get the custom domain to work. Typing the URL into the browser would just return the message "This site does not exist." I then noticed that something was really screwy with my test site's homepage (I was trying out the process on my test site first.) Although the page had content in it, the content was visible only in edit mode. No content appeared on the actual page- although you could see any content brought over from the CSS (like the header/side-bar, etc.). I tried erasing all of the content and writing just "Hi." Invisible. I checked other pages in the same category- no problems. I tried reverting the page to previous versions- same result. I tried deleting the entire page and then recreating it about 3 times. No matter what I did, I had the same problem: content built into the page, but none of it showing. Very weird. So I finally just deleted the page again, created a new homepage with a new URL (i.e., instead of "http://community.wikidot.com/home", I did "http://community.wikidot.com/homepage.") and reset the landing page in the Site Manager. Once I did that, the custom domain worked like magic!!
Anyway, the broken page was really weird. I can't figure out why this happened.
I'm still receiving this message…
Is the IP address, I use for wikidot: 74.86.235.236 is good?
If not, I didn't find how to ping wikidot.com…
Can somebody help me, please?
- James
See my reply above:
The IP address you have is correct.
The Wikidot Blog | My other works
Just to be sure that I write the good thing on my DNS management.
Because now it doesn't work, i still receive the Ooops! message.
- James
That second '@' is no good. Use '*' to make a wildcard, or 'www' to do the traditional thing.
The Wikidot Blog | My other works
Shouldn't the CNAME address be just wikidot.com without the www? That's how it is on mine.
Rob
Also, you've got www.wikidot.com. <— you may want to take out that trailing period / full stop.
— Shane | Blog | CycloDS Revolution | Compatibility List | Get your free Wiki! | XBL: leiger40
You need this only if you edit the raw DNS data (as I do). Any UI will add that automatically.
Sorry it's so difficult - DNS is not designed to be an end-user concept…
The Wikidot Blog | My other works
DNS is hard for a lot of supposedly "professional" system admins.
The biggest obstacle to doing DNS right is that even the best implementations don't tell you when you're doing it wrong. You should never use a CNAME with @ (the domain root), but even BIND9 ("the" DNS server software) will let you do it.
When referencing fully-qualified domain names (FQDNs) in DNS, they are supposed to have a dot (period, full-stop) at the end, to indicate that they are a FQDN. Web-based DNS managers should manage that for you, inserting or removing the dots as necessary. I wouldn't count on any of them doing it right, though. :)
Carl Cravens, ten.xyneohp|nevar#ten.xyneohp|nevar, WG Site Admin
I made the change up, but it still doesn't work…
Thanks a lot!
- James
James, I don't see where you've given the domain name you're working with… can you provide that, and any hostnames that you're trying to point to wikidot.com? (Domain name is just "mydomain.com" and a hostname would be "www" or such, used to make "www.mydomain.com".)
I can probably help you if I know what DNS records to look up.
Also, a screen shot of your current configuration would also be useful.
Carl Cravens, ten.xyneohp|nevar#ten.xyneohp|nevar, WG Site Admin
At last! I'm not the only James around here!
λ James Kanjo | blog | photos | contact
I'm working with : https://client.arianserver.com/
This what i wrote on the DNS management:
and what i wrote on my wiki : dblball.wikidot.com
and still doesn't work :(
But thanks a lot for all the help. I asked arian servers some help, but they refer me to ask wikidot how to do it.
- James
Try reversing your entries on the Wikidot setup. On my setup, I have "www.mydomain.com" on the custom domain line and "mydomain.com" on the 301 redirects line and it works fine.
[edit: It sounds like you should follow Carl's advice. it appears he understands this stuff more than most!]
-Ed
Free Wikidot Applications · Your Shared Photo Gallery · Your Personal Blog
I know I said the same thing about the CNAME entry, but looking at my 301 entry it doesn't have the www, so you might want to try that.
Okay, yeah… the problem isn't at a level you can control. Your provider's DNS is a mess… their servers apparently don't know about your domain, or even the addresses of its own authoritative name servers.
So you can stop trying to make this work for now… your DNS provider needs to fix some fundamental pieces of their configuration. Starting with the fact that their DNS servers apparently don't know about your domain at all.
Tell your provider this:
Just email me or private message me here on wikidot if you have questions or need further help. Give them my email address if you need to. This should be simple to fix, and you shouldn't even need to be worrying about this.
Carl Cravens, ten.xyneohp|nevar#ten.xyneohp|nevar, WG Site Admin
Thanks to all of you!
My provider manage to correct the error on their side because of your help!
Thanks again!
- James
That's good to hear. They still haven't quite fixed everything they should, but at least they've fixed your stuff.
Enjoy your custom domain!
Carl Cravens, ten.xyneohp|nevar#ten.xyneohp|nevar, WG Site Admin
Right, I know which unused custom domain I want to use, so…
I went over to GoDaddy and started setting it up, then chose PayPal as my payment option. Unfortunately it doesn't allow me to use my PayPal balance - I need to enter credit card details, which I don't have.
Any suggestions as to other places to buy a domain that are:
— Shane | Blog | CycloDS Revolution | Compatibility List | Get your free Wiki! | XBL: leiger40
I've used 1and1 as my host for custom domains and for my email accounts over the last 4 years with no problems and they accept PayPal as a payment option.
Rob
Thanks - will have a look :)
— Shane | Blog | CycloDS Revolution | Compatibility List | Get your free Wiki! | XBL: leiger40
Unfortunately, it's only available for UK residents.
— Shane | Blog | CycloDS Revolution | Compatibility List | Get your free Wiki! | XBL: leiger40
Does 1and1.com work for you down under? I use them here in the US and have so for a few years. They have reasonable hosting and domain registration rates.
-Ed
Free Wikidot Applications · Your Shared Photo Gallery · Your Personal Blog
Yes, that one allows Aussies ;) Ran into the same issue with PayPal though. Think I need to get myself a card :/
— Shane | Blog | CycloDS Revolution | Compatibility List | Get your free Wiki! | XBL: leiger40
Consider using a credit-debit card — a card that works on the Visa/MasterCard network, but only takes money from your debit account (and you're therefore not given any credit, and will never be placed in debt).
I've done this with my bank. Ask your bank about it.
λ James Kanjo | blog | photos | contact
I don't know if they are available in Australia yet but over here in the UK pre-paid credit cards have started to appear. I got a MasterCard one when I decided to get rid of all my "normal" credit cards last year. You top it up online from your bank account and the one I have can also be topped up with cash at the local post office. Although they don't give you credit and you can only spend the money you have put on the card (so you can't get into debt with them) they are a credit card so can be used online or when hiring a car for example where debit cards are usually not accepted.
Rob
Here in Spain these are called Internet Cards and they are used for buying on Internet. The aim is to protect you from those mean hackers that steal your CC number and then spend all your moneys and when you discover, it is too late… With this card, you put money that you want to spend, you spent it, and leave it empty, so even if some mean hacker cracks it, he cannot spend anything of your money, because there isn't any…
They are usually MasterCard type… I used it a couple of times to buy books on Amazone.com….
The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
Bertrand Russell
Is there a way to do this with the DNS server hostname setting rather than the CNAME setting? I am not sure I have my terminology right, but it generally looks like this ns1.something.com and ns2.something.com. I have over a dozen other websites and they've all set up using the DNS setting. I have never run into this CNAME & IP thing before.
I asked my domain host about it and they said I had to pay extra for a tool to edit that stuff. SO I am either going to have to switch hosts or pay extra if I want to do it the way it's explained here. Also, is this a free feature? It seems to indicate that it is in the Site Manager page, but I think I saw that it wasn't elsewhere. and anyway I am incredulous.
Yes, DNS configuration leaves most people like this. It's not Wikidot's fault, the Internet was around before us.
My domain registrar, gandi.net, gives me full access to the DNS zone file. If yours does not, change registrar and transfer your domains. They are messing with you.
Again: this is not Wikidot's problem. You set your DNS to point to Wikidot.com, either to the domain name or IP address. You add the custom domain. If you did it right it works.
Feel free to tell us what you are actually trying and what happens and we'll walk you through getting it working. I have 30+ domain names working on wikidot.com and it's pretty simple now.
The Wikidot Blog | My other works
Well, the issue I'm having is simply that they are demanding the DNS server name that looks like ns1.blah.com and ns2.blah.com. Which has worked with all my other sites just fine. I did try to put ns1.wikidot.com & etc. in there but it gave me an error saying it's not in the registry. Then, it took me two phonecalls and three chat sessions to explain to their technical services department what I wanted them to do, and then I got a little ugly when they told me I had to pay extra for the tool to do it and they said they would change it for me using the CNAME and IP address.
So they changed it. Supposedly. But things are acting weird and I'm not sure if it's something I'm doing on my end or what. But when I go to set it up in my site manager, it says it doesn't resolve to a valid IP address, but I look at my domain info the right IP address is there.
You're right, I am definitely going to have to get a new domain host. It might be worth it to call their customer service back again if I was only going to do one site here, but I'm like a crazy cat lady with websites.
I guess the search is on.
But out of curiosity. Why can't you set it up with the DNS name? I've never encountered a situation like this before. I'm not saying it's abnormal or wrong, just that in my journeys I've never encountered it. I find it hard to believe that I'm the only one who has encountered this issue.
In my new host, what should I be looking for under features to ensure that I can set it up this way? What terminology should I search for?
@ morning bird.
give Carl craven a pm. i get the impression (from his previous posts above) he really knows about this stuff.
He doesn't watch this page so may be unaware that you are in desperate need for informed help.
Thanks for the suggestions and help. I am all sorted! Once I got over my indigence at being asked to pay extra for total DNS control I realized it was only $3 extra so I figured I'd go ahead and do it and it was simple as pie.
I am still curious as to the reason the DNS name can't be provided. It would make it all so simpler. Is it a security issue? Or is there maybe the server runs on a different operating system than the servers I generally use?
Morningbird, I'm going to write a blog article on this. It is complex, messy, and confuses everyone who has to work with it, including me.
Basically you can use DNS names for subdomains but not for domains. This is a DNS thing, not Wikidot. So let's say you register example.com. You can set-up a number of "DNS records", including an A (host 'address') record that provides an IP address for a name. You always have an A record for a host name and it must always specify an IP address, not a name.
Which gives us a DNS entry like this:
And many web clients will try to make this more friendly. The '@' stands for 'the hostname', thus example.com. The 10800 is the timeout (time-to-live) which specifies how long this DNS entry is cached by servers between you and example.com.
Next, we can define subdomains like 'www.example.com' and 'blog.example.com'. You can define these either using address records, or using canonical name (CNAME) records.
A CNAME record refers to another DNS name, which can be 'wikidot.com' or 'www.wikidot.com' (these are equivalent here). So:
This is, again, the raw DNS record format. Most web interfaces try to make it simpler for you.
So, what does this mean for your custom domain?
One way for Wikidot to solve this problem is to simply ban the use of hostnames. Other services do this but I find it annoying because it means when people type the hostname without 'www' they land on whatever web site the actual A record points to.
Tell me if this helps. I'll write up the article now.
The Wikidot Blog | My other works
Thanks for all of that! My curiosity is somewhat satisfied. I look forward to your article.
I made the changes on the hosting side….
I made the changes on the wikidot side….
I never received any error messages but….I am still stuck with …..".wikidot.com" and the end of every page.
How long should I wait for the changes? (I know it depends on various factors but how long is TOO long?)
My site is www.turnerstips.ca
Thanks in advance!
@Birch, your setup was correct though I added "Use the custom domain as the only domain for this site" (I'm supersuperadmin, with access to all sites).
You should find that anyone going to a wikidot page now gets redirected properly to turnersips.ca.
-Pieter
Wikidot Inc.
The Wikidot Blog | My other works
cos when i click on a link i get:-
http://turnerstips.ca/answers
Works great now!
I guess I just had to wait…a lesson in patience!
@pierterh, what are the advantages/disadvantages to having "Use the custom domain as the only domain for this site" checked?
Thanks in advance.
What it says on the admin page: requests to the .wikidot.com site name will get redirected to the custom domain.
The Wikidot Blog | My other works