Bare CNAME records
Last Updated: December 12, 2023
What are CNAME records?
Canonical records, or CNAME records, are a powerful type of DNS record that will trump any other DNS record with the same record host. For example, because MX records do not have a record host, a blank CNAME record will break email routing. To prevent these problems from happening, you must always have something before your domain name in the host section of a CNAME record to prevent it from breaking other DNS records.
How to add a bare CNAME record
Sometimes, a hosting provider will only give you the CNAME record and nothing else. This is a problem, because you need a bare CNAME record for your site to work. But don’t worry, we’ve got your back! You just need to set up a URL forward. To do so, leave the domain field blank and put the CNAME record domain in the URL field (for example. if you have the CNAME on WWW.mydomainname, then you would put http://WWW.mydomainname in the URL) then select Redirect as the type and click Add Forwarding.
Your site should be up and ready to go!
Note: Some hosting provider require you to go back to them to finish activating the site. Ask your hosting provider if problems persist.
