Making your Site Live

Simple steps for making your site live.

DNS Provider

  • Log in to your DNS Provider (Namecheap, GoDaddy, Google Domains, etc).

1. Create a CNAME

Create a CNAME for the www subdomain for your domain:

  • Subdomain: www
  • Value: subdomain.airshipcms.io

In the above value, the subdomain is your subdomain on AirshipCMS.io.
Settings may take several minutes to hours to take effect, depending on your DNS provider.

Example:
For my site "doodlipoop.com":

  • Subdomain: www
  • Value: doodlipoop-shop.airshipcms.io

Result: www.doodlipoop.com points to and serves doodlipoop-shop.airshipcms.io.

2. Create a Redirect (Recommended)

Create a Temporary 302 Redirect to point your root domain yourdomain.com to your www subdomain www.yourdomain.com
Settings may take several minutes to hours to take effect, depending on your DNS provider.

Example:
For my site "doodlipoop.com", set:

  • Temporary 302 Redirect for doodlipoop.com
  • Point to www.doodlipoop.com

Result: doodlipoop.com points to www.doodlipoop.com and serves doodlipoop-shop.airshipcms.io.

2. Cannot Set a Redirect? (Alternative)

Some DNS providers do not have an option to set a Temporary Redirect for the root domain. In this case, you will need to create an ANAME and point your root domain to a static IP Address. This method is less recommended, becase IP Addresses of servers can change. This seldom happens, though it can happen if there are server upgrades, optimizations, or other system changes.

For some Airship Sites where we do not have access to the DNS Provider, or the DNS Provider does not have redirect controls, we use the redirect.name service.

Example: For my site "doodlipoop.com":

  • I have already set the CNAME for www to point to doodlipoop-shop.airshipcms.io
  • Following the instructions at redirect.name, I added the TXT record _redirect with the value Redirects to http://www.doodlipoop.com
  • Following the instructions at redirect.name, I added the A record for the root domain with the value 45.55.72.95

Result: doodlipoop.com points to 45.55.72.95 which is set to redirect to www.doodlipoop.com and serves doodlipoop-shop.airshipcms.io.

In case you are wondering why you cannot just point your root domain to your Airship Site, and then allow either "www" or your plain root domain serve the site, it is beause you cannot set a CNAME for root domains (that's just how domains work). Thus, we need to set a CNAME for "www" and point your root domain to "www."