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Cloudflare Domain Setup

Below is the process for setting up domains with Cloudflare.

Why do we use Cloudflare?

Cloudflare is essentially a web performance and security company that provides a range of services to improve the performance and security of websites. Some of the benefits of using Cloudflare for VH includes:

  • Improved website performance: Cloudflare's content delivery network (CDN) helps to reduce the load on our servers, and speeds up the delivery of our content to our visitors.

  • Enhanced security: Cloudflare offers a range of security features to protect our projects from various threats such as DDoS attacks, malware, and spam.

  • Easy and cost effective: Setting up Cloudflare is relatively easy and does not require any technical expertise. Cloudflare's basic plan is free and provides many of the features that are essential for most websites. There are also paid plans, but we don't have a need for it.

Overall, using Cloudflare helps improve the performance and security of our projects.

How to set up an existing domain

To set up a domain with Cloudflare from another registrar, follow these steps:

  1. Go to Cloudflare's website and login with your account. Note that you'll need to have been given permission to edit VH's websites on Cloudflare by one of the core team members with access.

  2. After logging in, click on the "Add a Site" button and enter your new domain name. Cloudflare will scan our DNS records and show you a list of all the DNS records for this domain.

Note: This is the step where you'll want to make sure to add DNS records that point to our Digital Ocean droplet.

Add the following two records:

  • TYPE: "A", NAME: "@", CONTENT: "134.209.65.245"
  • TYPE: "CNAME" NAME: "www", CONTENT:"yourdomainname.org"

  1. Select the DNS records that you want to keep and click on the "Continue" button.

  2. Review the DNS records and make sure they are correct. If everything looks good, click on the "Confirm and Continue" button.

  3. Cloudflare will now provide you with two DNS servers that you need to use to point your domain to Cloudflare.

  4. Go to our domain registrar's website (e.g. Namecheap, which we normally use) and log in to our account.

  5. Find the DNS settings for your domain and replace the existing DNS servers with the ones provided by Cloudflare. This process may vary depending on your domain registrar.

  6. Once you have updated your DNS servers, return to the Cloudflare dashboard and click on the "Recheck Nameservers" button. Cloudflare will now check to see if your domain is properly pointed to their servers.

  7. If the nameservers check is successful, click on the "Continue" button to proceed with the setup process. Choose the free plan, which is a bit hidden below the other plans.

  8. Cloudflare will now start the process of setting up our domain on their platform. This process may take some time.

That's it! You have now successfully set up our domain with Cloudflare.

How to set up a brand new domain

If you don't have a domain yet, you can buy it on Cloudflare directly, in which case none of the steps above are nessesary. This is usually always preffered, so if you can, buy the domain on Cloudflare.

  1. Go to Cloudflare's website and login with your account. Note that you'll need to have been given permission to edit VH's websites on Cloudflare by one of the core team members with access.

  2. After logging in, click on the "Domain Registration" button on the left sidebar, below "Websites".

  3. Then click "Register Domains", type the domain you'd like to buy, search, and purchase.

  4. Once purchased, you'll need to point the domain to our Digital Ocean Droplett.

  5. Go back to the domain, select "DNS", and add 2 records:

  • TYPE: "A", NAME: "@", CONTENT: "134.209.65.245"
  • TYPE: "CNAME" NAME: "www", CONTENT:"yourdomainname.org"

Hit save. You're done!

Cloudflare will now start the process of setting up our domain on their platform. This process may take some time.

Important for SquareSpace

If you're adding a domain that will be pointed to SquareSpace, make sure to turn off th Proxied status. This will be a yellow cloud icon that shows up next to each record in the DNS settings for the domain. If you click on the cloud icon, it should turn gray, and that should allow SquareSpace to successfully connect.

Still having issues with connecting to SquareSpace? Contact James, our Director of Operations.

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