Connect your domain to a website

Add two DNS records, and Halo does the rest, including the certificate. Your site stays reachable at its Halo address throughout.

Every organization has an address on Halo, and one website can answer there. To use your own, open Domains on the website, enter the Address, such as www.example.org, and choose Connect. It takes someone who can manage websites.

Custom domains depend on your plan, and so does how many addresses your organization can connect. If yours doesn't include them, Domains says so, and your website stays at its Halo address. If you've used them all, Connect says so. Ask for more through Contact Halo.

You'll need access to your DNS provider, usually whoever you bought the domain from. If that's someone else's job, you can copy the records from the page and send them on.

The steps

1. Prove it's yours. Add the TXT record Halo shows you. It stops anyone else claiming your address. You can remove it once the address is live.

2. Point it at Halo. Add the CNAME record Halo shows you. This is the step that sends readers to your website, so nothing changes for them until you do it. If your domain serves an old site today, that's the moment it moves.

3. The connection gets secured. Halo gets your certificate once the record is in place. It usually takes a few minutes, it renews by itself, and there's nothing for you to do.

Halo checks by itself every few minutes and sends you a notification when the address is live, so you can close the page. Check now looks straight away, and says what it found if that isn't what it expected. DNS changes can take a while to reach everywhere, sometimes hours, so a record that isn't found yet may just need time.

Bare domains

example.org without the www is a bare domain, and DNS doesn't normally allow a CNAME there. Some providers offer a stand-in, often called flattening or ALIAS. Otherwise, connect www.example.org and have your DNS provider redirect the bare domain to it.

Primary

The first address to go live becomes primary: readers at any other address are sent to it. Search engines prefer that, since they treat two addresses showing the same content as a duplicate. You can choose a different one, or none.

If your DNS moves away later, Halo notices, tells you, and sends readers back to an address that works.

An address another website holds

An address can belong to one website at a time. If another of your websites has it, remove it there first. A website in the Trash keeps its addresses, for when it's restored, and Halo names it: restore it and remove the address, or delete it for good.

Removing an address

Remove stops your website answering there straight away. Connecting it again means waiting for a new certificate.