TIME Sites Subdomains vs. Custom Domains
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, Pork Bun, or AWS.
Every site you create on TIME Sites can immediately be published to a TIME Sites subdomain. But if you want your site to appear at a custom domain (for example, www.mywebsite.com) there are a few additional steps you'll have to take:
Register the custom domain, if you don't already own it
Enter your Custom Domain Name in Website Settings in Design Studio.*
Reach out to your TIME Sites support team member to let them know you want to add a custom domain. You will be asked to add an entry to your DNS settings to validate ownership of your domain.**
Once you have completed this step (you have 72 hours to do so), let your TIME Sites contact know.⁺ They will provide you a URL, to which you will configure your domains DNS A record or create a new CNAME.***
Custom domains are limited to paid editions of TIME Sites.
If you just want to add a custom subdomain (mysite.example.com), try adding that into the custom domain field and publishing the site first. You or your company could have already set it up so that any subdomain can be added in TIME Sites without additional steps.
*Depending on if you update your A record or create a CNAME in step 4, you might have to add www to the beginning of your custom domain in TIME Sites Website Settings.
**Validation can take anywhere from a few minutes to 24-48 hours.
⁺While waiting for the entry to validate, make sure to delete any existing A records and CNAME's that were there prior to starting this process.
***DNS propagation can take anywhere from few minutes to 24-48 hours.
Publish to a Custom Domain
To use a custom domain you'll need to update your site settings in the TIME Sites application, and also update 2-3 records with your domain registrar.
You'll need to either already own a domain, or purchase a custom domain from a domain registrar (i.e. Namecheap or GoDaddy), before following these directions.
For step-by-step instructions on how to add a custom domain in GoDaddy, click here.
Different registrars require different amounts of time to transfer a custom domain. Please see the documentation of the service you use to register your domain name for more information.
Update Your Site Settings in TIME Sites
First open the "Website Settings" dialog. With the "General" tab selected, you'll see a field for "Custom Domain Name".
Important note: When setting up a custom domain, there is a 64 character limit for the TIME Sites subdomain name. TIME Sites will not limit the number of characters, but the live website will give a 502 Gateway Error if that character limit is surpassed.
Type the name of your custom domain into this field and click "Submit".
Now publish your site using the "Publish" button at the right side of the top toolbar:
You can also publish from the "Publishing" tab of the Website Settings dialog:
Update the Site's CNAME on Your Domain Registrar
Now at your domain registar (e.g., GoDaddy, NameCheap), update your site's CNAME to the values provided by TIME Sites. These values are valid for 72 hours after creation.
For guidance about how to update your CNAME with a Godaddy domain, refer to this article.
For guidance about how to update your A Record with a Namecheap domain, refer to this article.
Once you've updated your CNAME, reach back out to TIME Sites support for the next step.
Update your site's A record
Once TIME Sites has verified that your SSL certificate has been validated, you will be provided with a cloudfront domain you can use to update your A record.
If your domain registrar does not allow for A records to have non-IP addresses, go to the next step.
Create a new CNAME
If you are unable to add the cloudfront domain as an A record, instead create a new CNAME record with the following values:
Name: *
Value: xxxxxxxxxxxx.cloudfront.com <<< this will be the domain you are provided
This will allow you to add subdomains to your site as well. If you need to do this step, you will need to add www to the beginning of your custom domain in TIME Sites Website Settings (www.example.com). If you want to have the naked domain (example.com) work as well, you will need to set up Forwarding in your registrar for example.com to redirect to www.example.com.
Creating subdomains for your custom domain
If you want to create multiple subdomains using your custom domain as a base (site1.exampledomain.com, site2.exampledomain.com, etc), make sure to add a wildcard subdomain in your domain registrar: *.exampledomain.com
Please refer to your domain registrar's support documentation to set up the wildcard subdomain. Once you've done that, entering in a custom subdomain in TIME Sites is the same as entering in a custom domain.
It may take a moment or two to complete the publishing process, depending on the size of your site. Once the process is complete, you can view the live site by clicking the "arrow" button. It typically also takes some time for DNS updates to propagate, so you may not see your site appear on the domain right away.
Editing Your Domain
The subdomain or custom domain can be edited at any time from the "Website Settings" dialog (under the "Studio" menu.)
Note that if you want to make this change after the website has already been published, you must first unpublish the website, then re-publish it in order for the change to take effect.