WARNING: If you use GoDaddy or other budget DNS providers, they are not capable of working well with our best-in-class hosting architecture. They do not support secure domain forwarding and as such https://yourdomain.com will not work. Other variations of your domain will work fine. We recommend using a more modern DNS such as Cloudflare, EasyDNS, NameCheap, Google Domains, or AWS.
If you use GoDaddy to host your domains, the steps needed to add a custom domain in TIME Sites vary a little from what you would do on most enterprise registrars. But no need to fear, as long as you follow these steps:
1. In website settings, make sure to enter in your custom domain with www at the front, like https://www.example.com
2. Publish your website
3. Reach out to TIME Sites Customer success (either your rep via email or on the support chat) to let them know you want to add a custom domain. Once you give them your domain (www.example.com), they will give you two values to create a new CNAME record in GoDaddy.
4. Login to GoDaddy
5. Go to My Products > Click on DNS for the domain you want
6. On this page, scroll down and click on "ADD" in the Records section.
7. Create a new CNAME record using the values your TIME Sites Customer Success rep gave you. Host corresponds to the name and Points to the value. You can leave the TTL to 1 hour or change it to have a Custom time of 600 seconds. Click save when done.
8. Let your TIME Sites Customer Success rep know that you've completed this step. Once the CNAME has been validated, your rep will send you a new value for a new CNAME.
9. While you're waiting, make sure to delete the CNAMEs that look like this, as you won't need them. You can delete records by clicking on the pencil to edit, and then again to delete.
If you have any existing A records in your DNS, make sure to delete them now as well.
10. Once your CNAME has been validated, your TIME Sites Customer Success rep will send you a cloudfront domain. You'll use this to create a new CNAME record.
11. If this domain is an existing domain in TIME Sites, and has an A record pointing at 52.45.81.80, delete that A record now. Otherwise move on to the next step.
12. Create a new CNAME record with an * in the host field and the cloudfront domain in the points to field. Click save.
13. Finally, scroll down the page to get to the Forwarding section. Set up Domain forwarding to look exactly like this (but replace example.com with your domain and make sure to include www) and click save.
14. Congratulations! You're done. :)
Keep in mind that when making changes to your DNS, it could take between 24-48 hours for any changes to take effect.