Can I use my own domain name?
Yes. There is a $5 per month charge, and you will need to point your domain servers to our cloud. We can help you through it, just email us in advance at help@nationbuilder.com to schedule the switchover. We do not provide the domain names. If you do not already have one, try a service like Namecheap.
Warning: If you create a redirect to your .nationbuilder.com domain, it will cause significant downtime in switching to our DNS. You should not use a redirect if you are intersted in people being able to find your site in search engines.
The switch can take 24-48 hours once we have all your information, so please plan in advance. If you are using incoming email with the domain, we need to know about that (in particular, which provider is handling this) so that your email is not interrupted when we make the switch. If you're going to be using bulk email with your domain, here are some thoughts on that, including info on getting up to 10 free custom address Gmail accounts: "How can I optimize my email deliverability with NationBuilder?"
There are two ways your custom domain can be set up.
- You host the DNS wherever you want and just add a CNAME pointing www.yoursite.com to proxy.nationbuilder.com. Then you just send us an email and we turn it on. The downside to this is that you will need to figure out some way to redirect yoursite.com to www.yoursite.com because we cannot do that for you and most DNS services cannot either.
- The alternative is that we host your DNS for you, and you point your name servers to us. Then we can handle the redirect for you, but we will also need to make sure your email is configured properly. If you are using Google Apps, that's easy, but in general, we will need to take a look at how you are currently set up to make sure everything goes smoothly. Do email us about your inbound email setup, and if you are switching over a live site, be sure to coordinate with us in advance. Our name servers are:
- ns10.nationbuilder.com
- ns11.nationbuilder.com
- ns12.nationbuilder.com
- ns13.nationbuilder.com
- ns14.nationbuilder.com
- ns15.nationbuilder.com
(If you are hosting your own DNS, here are the email records to update.)