How to link your domain name to your website
- By updating the DNS records
If you want to use Gandi LiveDNS, you can add to or modify the DNS records to point specifically to your "Apex" domain ("naked" domain) or a subdomain (www for example).
To do this, you will need to edit the A and/or CNAME records with the values that your hosting provider will specify. You will find more information on how to modify DNS records on this page:
https://docs.gandi.net/en/domain_names/common_operations/dns_records.html#contents
Reminder:
For all the following examples, you must first check that another record of the same type does not exist before adding it. If it does, modify the existing record or delete it before adding a new one. It is very important to double-check this as two A records with different IP addresses will yield random results (depending on which server responds first) and two CNAME records on the same subdomain simply won't work.
Example: Updating your records for a WIX website
If you have a WIX account, and they ask you to update your domain's DNS (or "DNS zone"), you'll get something like :
An A record for example.com pointing to the IP 23.236.62.147 and
a CNAME record for www.example.com, pointing to www218.wixdns.net.
To do this you will need to do the following:
From the Domain Name / DNS Records menu "modify" ("pencil " icon) or add (Add) the type A record:
- Leave the current name @ (or enter it if this is a new record)
- Leave the default TTL [¹].
- Enter/modify the IP address provided by your web host in the Value field
- Click on update or create to save the record.
- Do the same for the CNAME record: Modify the "www CNAME" record if it exists or create it:
- Leave the current name (www if it exists) or create it,
- Leave the default TTL,
- Enter/modify the Host Name by entering the one provided by your web host without forgetting to add a dot (.) at the end,
- Click on update or create to save the record.
Keep in mind that even once this has been done and the changes saved, that the update is not instantaneous: you should wait at least 3 hours for the information to propagate and for the changes to be visible online.
[¹] Setting a low TTL (300 for example) will not speed up the propagation of a modified record. In fact, it is always the TTL that has ALREADY propagated that will take precedence. A new record will be automatically propagated to the registry as soon as it has been confirmed/saved and then to the "root" DNS. However, if you use a low TTL you run the risk of having the record in question blacklisted. For this reason, a minimum TTL of 3600 seconds is recommended.
- By changing the name servers (DNS)
Hosting providers frequently provide their customers with name servers that are already configured to point a domain name to their hosting servers, and thus allow the website to be viewed in a browser.
As such, you will need to change the nameservers via your Gandi account to fully replace those that are currently in use, with those provided by your webhost:
https://docs.gandi.net/en/domain_names/common_operations/changing_nameservers.html#contents
When replacing name servers, it's important to replace them all. Mixing name servers from different providers will not work properly.
Warning:
The name servers provided by hosting providers generally do not contain the DNS records required for email service to work. If you are using Gandimail, check with your provider first to make sure that you can edit the DNS records on their end so that you can make the necessary changes. For more information, see: Do I have to use Gandi's DNS to use Gandi Mail?
- By using Web Forwarding
A simple method of having your domain name or a sub-domain (such as www.example.com) redirect to your site is to use Web Forwarding. This is useful when you simply want to redirect your visitors to an existing website, for details see :
https://docs.gandi.net/en/domain_names/common_operations/web_forwarding.html
However, you should be aware of the potential impact this could have on search engine rankings.