Zoho Sites Help
Zoho Sites Help

Domain Mapping

Overview

Every website needs to have a domain to be accessible online. With Zoho Sites you can map a domain to your website in three ways:

  1. Use a Zoho Sites subdomain.
  2. Buy a domain
  3. Map a domain that you own.

This document however, covers how you will need to go about mapping a domain that you already own to Zoho Sites.

DNS Configuration

1. In order to verify the domain, you must add a CNAME Record as shown in the screen displayed when the domain is added to the site. The CNAME contains the host name (marked in red and which is an alphanumeric token) 'xxxxxxx' that points to zhs.zohosites.com (marked in blue).

Note: The token shown in the screenshot is a sample. It will be different for each domain on your site.

Note: EU users must point their CNAME Records to zhs.zohosites.eu. Likewise, CN, IN, and AU users will use zhs.zohosites.com.cn, zhs.zohosites.in, and zhs.zohosites.com.au respectively.

2. Another CNAME Record should be added with the host name 'www' and point to zhs.zohosites.com.

Note: EU users must point their CNAME Records to zhs.zohosites.eu. Likewise, CN, IN, and AU users will use zhs.zohosites.com.cn, zhs.zohosites.in, and zhs.zohosites.com.au respectively.

3. Forward your root domain 'yourdomain.com' to 'www.yourdomain.com' (domain name with a www).

Note:  Zoho Sites does not provide A record IP address to map a third-party domain to Zoho Sites. If you have an A Record added by default in your DNS Manager, you may leave it as it is. Adding a CNAME Record and setting up domain forwarding as given above are the only two steps required to map a third-party domain to Zoho Sites.

Instructions to do it yourself

Your domain provider would have provided an administrative console to manage and configure your domain. The administrative console's user interface may vary depending on the domain provider, but the following basic steps are similar.

  1. Login to your domain provider's administrative console.
  2. Go to DNS Settings section.Search for Forwarding option and click on the link to set domain forwarding.
  3. Forward the domain name (domain name without www) to www.yourdomain.com (domain name with www) and save the changes.
  4. Navigate to DNS configurations / Manage DNS section. Add a CNAME Record containing the host name as an alphanumeric token to zhs.zohosites.com.
  5. Add Another CNAME Record with the host name 'www' and point to zhs.zohosites.com, Note for 4 & 5: EU users must point their CNAME Records to zhs.zohosites.eu. Likewise, CN, IN, and AU users will use zhs.zohosites.com.cn, zhs.zohosites.in, and zhs.zohosites.com.au respectively.
  6. Save the changes and logout.

If you face any issues while mapping your domain name to Zoho, you may contact your domain provider's support team. You may provide them with the steps given above and have them assist you. Usually these changes take effect in 10-15 minutes, however in some cases it could take up to 48 hours.

Domain provider specific instructions

GoDaddy, Wild West Domains and plenty of other domain providers use similar Domain Manager. 

For information about URL forwarding and CNAME configuration for other commonly used domain providers click on the help links given below.


GoDaddy



NameCheap



iWantMyName



DnsMadeEasy



Network Solutions



Bluehost


URL/Domain forwarding: https://my.bluehost.com/cgi/help/182

MyDomain.com



1and1



DreamHost



register.com



Hostgator



If your domain provider does not provide a URL/domain forward option, you may make use of third-party URL redirect service providers like CloudFlare, NameCheap etc. that provide you with an option to forward your domain name.