Adding a domain name to your site and taking site live

[mario_gudelj]

This document will help you take your site live, once you have built your site in trial mode, you're happy with it and want to add a domain name to it.

Step 1. Obtain a domain name

If you have an existing domain, move to step 2.

If you don't have a domain name you have to purchase it from a domain name registrar. Business Catalyst does not sell domain names. Some popular registrars are GoDaddy, NetRegistry, list of top 10 in US. Google for more.

Step 2. Upgrading a site

To add a domain name to a site, you will need to upgrade it first. You can read this detailed tutorial or follow the steps listed below.

If you're a partner you can do this through Partner Portal > My Sites tab. Click on the site you wish to upgrade, click Upgrade Site button and go through the upgrade process.

If you're a business owner you will either need to contact your partner to go through the above steps or you'll need to click the green Upgrade button in the top righ corner of your site's admin console and go through the upgrade process.

Step 3. Pointing/redelegating your domain to your trial site on Business Catalyst

Now that you have a domain name and your site is upgraded you need to point that domain to your trial site on Business Catalyst. You have two options in this case:

1. Redelegate domain to BC's DNS servers

If you choose this option, you are basically giving DNS management to BC's DNS servers. You must use this option if you with to use BC's mail hosting.

Redelagation involves changing DNS server addresses at your registrar to BC's DNS server addresses. When you log in to DNS management tool on the registrar's website you will find a section which allows you to specify DNS servers. This is where you need to enter the following DNS server addrress:

• ns1.worldsecuresystems.com (54.236.190.129) - primary DNS server   
• ns2.worldsecuresystems.com (54.246.209.121) - secondary DNS server
• ns3.worldsecuresystems.com (54.252.148.151)

The IP addresses are optional. Som registrars require them and some don't. If the registrar doesn't have the fields for them then you  don't need to supply them.

Here is an example of where you would change DNS servers in GoDaddy's control panel.

If you're not sure who your registar is you can obtain this information with "whois" utility. http://whois.domaintools.com/ is a free online whois service you can use.

2. Host your domain with external DNS provider and point A-records to your BC site

If you choose this option you will not be able to host mail on Business Catalyst. In this case your DNS will be managed by an external DNS provider and all you'll have to do is to create A-records that point to Business Catalyst IP address and also define an SPF record for the domain. BC has a few IP addresses for each data center. You will have to know which data center your site is hosted on before you can create an A-record.

The following are the IP addresses for all the BC data centers:

• United States data center - 54.236.190.114 or 54.236.189.64 or 54.236.189.61
• European Union data center - 54.246.209.120 or 54.246.209.119 or 54.246.209.93
• Australia data center - 54.252.148.183 or 54.252.148.191 or 54.252.148.134

To determine the datacenter your site is located on, try pinging the system (*.businesscatalyst.com) or secure (*.worldsecuresystems.com) subdomains for your site. To ping a site, follow these instructions:

• On Windows
  • go to Start->Run(or search)->cmd.exe
• On Mac
  • search and open Terminal
• Then,
  • type in the phrase in italic: ping yoursite.businesscatalyst.com
    • replace yoursite with your subdomain
      
  • Look at the IP you see on the screen - and use it or the other 2 IPs for the same datacenter, at your registrar

*NOTE: you might get "Request timed out" when doing the ping command. This is normal, and it doesn't mean that the site is down

Make sure that you don't forget www subdomain. You will usually have to create 2 A-records, one for your domain and for the www version of your domain. You can also create a CNAME between www and non-www URLs.

SPF changes

    If the domain has no SPF record defined, you should add one with the following value:

    "v=spf1 mx include:worldsecuresystems.com ~all"

    If the domain already has an SPF record, you need to include the following value:

    "include:worldsecuresystems.com"

For detailed instructions about SPF records, please read this article.

Step 4. Adding a domain to your site

So, now that your site is upgraded, you have obtained the domain name and pointed or redelegated it to Business Catalyst, you will have to add it to your site to tie in the trial site you've built with that domain name.

1. Log in to admin console of your website by appending /adminconsole to the staging/trial URL
2. Select Site Settings -> Site Domains and then click New Domain.
3. The Add New Domain modal will pop-up, enter your domain name in its plain format (e.g mydomain.com).
4. If you have not redelegated your domain name, expand the Advanced section and select the 'Use and external DNS server' option
5. Click Save.

See this tutorial for detailed instructions.

Domain name FAQs

See Domain name FAQ

[Guest]

Just a bit confused.. If we use the following - doesn't this mean the site is hosted in the US?

ns1.worldsecuresystems.com (192.150.2.143) - primary DNS server        

ns2.worldsecuresystems.com (192.150.8.143) - secondary DNS server        

What would be the DNS names for Australian servers?

[mario_gudelj]

DNS servers are the same no matter where you are. Only if you're hosting DNS externally should you worry about the data center you need to point your A-records to.

Cheers,

-m

[DRTFoley81]

I have created a site using MUSE and have published it with business catalyst. Pardon me for what may be a silly question, but I am just learning to build sites now. The person for whom this site is for has already paid for 5 years of hosting and would like his site to stay where is currently sits.

What is my best option to make this happen for him?

Also will the web form created inside the site stay active? This is the most important piece of the puzzle.

[Madrid_Man]

Mario, I accidentally did BOTH of these options (prior to finding this doc). I'll explain. When I was looking for info on how to get the domain from GoDaddy to BC, the first doc I found was about pointing the A record and using the data center. I realized this is not what I wanted to do and didn't know how to change it back. I did not record the original A record IP from GoDaddy. I did this for two sites.

As I looked for more info, I found a doc that talked about redelegating the domain (the other of the two options - both of which are listed above). I then realized this is what I had done for my very first site a couple of months back, it looked familiar.

So, I went back into the two sites I had changed the A records for in GoDaddy (to point to BC data center USA), then I redelegated both as per the instructions above.

Will this cause any problems?

The two sites are www.madridconnection.com and www.happywanderermedia.com

Thanks for your help!

[mario_gudelj]

That's not a problem. Once you redelegate whatever is at GoDaddy's end will not matter.

Cheers,

-mario

[Henry_Bendik]

I have an existing BC site in the system and we have built a new site also in BC and now need to make the change so new one is live and old one goes away. What are steps in doing this?

Thanks

H~

[Liam Dilley]

The guide is no different.

You delete the domain information from the old one and add the do win information into the new one. Depending on if your a partner or not you backup and delete the old site either in the partner portal or under site settings in the admin if you built the site in muse.

[MgnArngtn]

I have pushed my site live and directed my Nameservers on GoDaddy to

ns1.worldsecuresystems.com      

ns2.worldsecuresystems.com

ns3.worldsecuresystems.com

My default URL is set to www.pachasoap.com, howerver, the site is directed to pachasoap01.worldsecuresystems.com

So, how do I directy it immediately to only pachasoap.com?

[Cathie_live]

I've just published an under construction site for a client, I'd purchased email addresses from the domain registrar but now can't use them because I'm using BC to host the site. How do I set up email for my client through BC so that they have a personalised email address that is linked to the site's domain name?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Cheers,

Cathie

[sasegars58]

We're preparing to take our (temporary site) live, and want to keep the same domain that we've had for years (registered through GoDaddy but directed to the current hosting service.  We've chosen to host with BC, and have upgraded.  We currently use google apps for email (to use our domain name extension for all of our email addresses).  What do we need to do (precisely) to maintain our email addresses with the domain name?  We've had the email addresses for years and don't want to experience any delay or interruption in the emails as we rely on them constantly.  So I suppose I have two very important questions:  (1) If we take the site live with BC and want to keep our domain name --- what specifically do we do within GoDaddy; and (2) what specifically happens to the email addresses that we're currently using google apps email for?  Thanks.  I will try to contact support about this also since we really need to move forward, but a prompt response is greatly appreciated!

[Daniel_Gundi]

Hi,

@MgnArngtn - I've taken a look at your domain and it looks like this is up and running correctly.

@Cathie_live - In this situation, you have 2 options. Firstly, If you would like to keep your email with your domain registrar, you can keep your DNS (name servers) as they are, pointed to the domain registrar where the email is hosted. Then point the 'A records' for your site to Business Catalyst (your domain registrar can guide you on how to do this on their system). For this process, see Point externally hosted domains to your Business Catalyst site.

The second option is to use Business Catalyst for both site and email. For this process, see our Going live guide.

@sasegars58 - To ensure no downtime with your Google apps email accounts, here's what you need to do:

1. Add your domain name to Business Catalyst

2. Configure the domain name for Google Apps, see Setting up Google Apps email with Business Catalyst

3. Allow a few hours for the settings to update on the BC servers, then redelegate your domain name from GoDaddy to BC, see Redelegate domain to Business Catalyst DNS.

By setting up the DNS in BC prior to changing the name servers, it will be ready to go when you make the switch.

Hope this helps.

Daniel

[wallabycreek..]

Hi I seem to have got myself into a bit of trouble. I thought I was deleting some faulty work and I have completely deleted my domain from your system.

The lost domain is www.theboatbookshop.com

Can you tell me where it has gone and retrieve it.  Thanks  Alan

[Liam Dilley]

Hi Alan, It does not work like that, Your domain is not lost. You have your domain with your registra, that is going no where.

You will need to add the domain back into the admin if you removed it. Go into settings and the domain manager. Follow what to do here: http://kb.worldsecuresystems.com/846/cpsid_84622.html

[justdaveillustrated]

Please help me.

Im trying to link a domain from webcity to bc this is the control panel

Add DNS Record

Enter the parameters for the DNS record to be created and click 'Add Record'. If no prefix is specified, the record will be apply to the root or origin of the zone. The time to live (TTL) for the record will default to one day, you may specify a different TTL if required.

Prefix
TTL	When blank defaults to 86400
Type	A                     CNAME
Value

< Back

im in the uk so the value would be 54.246.209.120 or 54.246.209.119

im guessing i dont need to change the TTL if i put in a prefix

what would be the prefix for this?

when i leave it blank and click add record this page shows

The addition of this record would result in our servers hosting neither the web site nor the email for this domain. If this is really what you want to do, map the domain to 'No Mapping' and configure its DNS records via the domain management page.

so do I add no mapping to the prefix? or something else? please please help!!!!!

[antodubuc]

Hi,

I did link my CB website antosdesign.com.au with crazydomain

add

ns1.worldsecuresystems.com     

ns2.worldsecuresystems.com

ns3.worldsecuresystems.com

and

The following are the IP addresses for BC data centers:

54.252.148.183 or 54.252.148.191 for sites on the Australia data center

but still doesn't appear in google.

Am I miss anything?

I did it 2 day ago.... I need the website function by friday.

Thanks

Anto

PS: I hope my english is ok

[Daniel_Gundi]

Hi Anto,

Apologies for the delay. Please note that for any urgent issues, you can always get in touch with a member of our support team:

http://helpx.adobe.com/business-catalyst/kb/business-catalyst-support-guidelines.html#id_23645

In regards to your situation, the above information will get your site up and running when entering your domain name in your web browser URL bar. Having your site show up on Google is another story.

I can see your site is up and running correctly when entering it in the address bar. To get your site to show up on Google, there are a number of methods to speed up this process, on of which involves Google web master tools, here is a resource I found for you:

http://www.wikihow.com/Get-Your-Website-Indexed-by-Google

Hope this helps.

Danny

[rossdc]

Hey there,

I built my daughter's original website www.environmentalhelp.org in Muse and pushed it live via BC as one of my five Creative Cloud subscription hosting slots.  It functions normally in BC, yet when we type the url into a browser, the error dialog comes back that the server cannot be found. Am I doing something wrong or ...?  Any ideas?

Many thanks.

DCR

[Daniel_Gundi]

Hi DCR,

From what I can see, your site environmentalhelp.org is not currently pointing to the Business Catalyst servers. Try following step 3 of the above document, if you still have trouble you can get in touch with our support team for assistance.

http://helpx.adobe.com/business-catalyst/kb/business-catalyst-support- guidelines.html#id_23645

Cheers,

Danny

[rossdc]

Thanks. That link is broken ...

[rossdc]

Got it. Back shortly.

[rossdc]

Danny, I made those updates. Propagation awaits! Many thanx for your time & expertise.

DCR

[Phylogeny_Contemporary]

I am still a bit confused about uploading to my yahoo server. I have used Dreamweaver for years and have this easily configured to upload to my existing domain. I am happy with the new site I designed on Muse. How do I put this on my server. Why can't I hit shift (u) and just upload? or how to I set the site to my  yahoo FTPS address?

[Liam Dilley]

If your using business catalyst with Muse you can't. It has to be on Adobe's servers.

If not this guide is not relevant to your hosting. Seek guides on your hosting in how to upload files to it.

[Phylogeny_Contemporary]

It won't upload to a FTPS server, yahoo site hosting is secure and requires ftps. None of the info I put into the upload to FTP host was compatable.The best I could do was export at HTML then make a new site on dreamweaver. Then upload from there. Then it changed the look and page properties in many places. I've had to do a total patchy work around to make it work. No ideal unless you use the business catalyst...