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At Cloudways, when you take your site live, you change the domain of your application so it no longer has the default domain, which is provided by Cloudways. You have your domain name attached to your website.
If you're still utilizing the default domain provided by Cloudways for your application or if you've undergone a business name change, or perhaps acquired a new domain for your existing website—this article is your guide. Here, we'll walk you through the straightforward steps on the Cloudways Platform to seamlessly update the domain name of your application, ensuring your online presence aligns perfectly with your current branding and objectives.
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Click Here if you would like to know what domains are.
How to Change the Domain Name of Your Application
From the top menu bar, open Servers.
Next, choose the server where your desired application is deployed.
Click www.
Next, choose your application name.
Under Application Management, select Domain Management.
Next, click Add Domain.
Now, add your domain. You can add a root domain, e.g., cloudways.icu or a subdomain, e.g., support.cloudways.icu. Alternatively, you can add a WildCard domain, e.g., *.cloudways.icu, which covers all the subdomains simultaneously instead of adding each domain individually.
Once done, click Add Domain.
Tip
Adding a root domain, e.g., cloudways.icu, will automatically cover the domain with a www alias.
If you have any additional domains associated with the same application, e.g., cloudways.co.uk or app.cloudways.icu, you can add them here by clicking Add Domain. These additional domains will be added as an alias.
Next, you need to make one of your domains a primary domain. Then, all the other domains will be added as an alias. You can learn about the differences between primary and alias domains.
You navigate to your desired domain and click ⋮ More Options. Next, select Make Primary to make your domain a primary domain.
Tip:
You can delete any unused domains that you no longer need from this section too except the Cloudways default domain.
Next, click Set as Primary to confirm the selection.
Next, you need to add your DNS records (A Records). We have also created a guide about creating A records. which are used to point your domain to your Cloudways server to take your website live using the new domain name.
In this tutorial, we have used Namecheap to add and manage our DNS records. Of course, you can also use any DNS registrar of your choice, but the process should be identical.
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Please note that the domain registrar is the company from where you purchased your domain, while the DNS records can be hosted at the same domain registrar or any third-party service.
If you don't want to point DNS records, you can subscribe to DNS Made Easy Add-on for hassle-free DNS management, where we manage your DNS records.
When you change the domain name, it also updates your domain name in the application database.
That’s it! We hope this article was helpful. If you need any help, then feel free to search your query on Cloudways Support Center or contact us via chat (Need a Hand > Send us a Message). Alternatively, you can also create a support ticket.