Going live
Choose the address your site lives at
The domain is the first question the Console asks, before a template and before a single page. Getting it right at that moment saves a migration later.
What the field accepts
The domain field wants a root domain: example.com. The exact refusals are worth knowing because each one catches people out.
What you type
Result
example.com
Accepted
shop.example.com
Refused: subdomains are not allowed, use the root domain only
example
Refused: the domain must include a top-level domain such as .com or .org
Fewer than 3 characters
Refused
More than 253 characters
Refused
Nothing is created while you are on this step. The Console says so under the field, and it means it: you can go back and change your mind until you finish the last step of the wizard.
A domain you already own
Enter it. The wizard is explicit that a domain you already own works, including one currently pointing at a site hosted somewhere else that you are moving here.
Your existing site keeps serving visitors while you build. Building and previewing happen on a private preview address and change nothing about where the domain points. The switch happens when you publish.
A domain you do not own yet
The Console plan includes a domain registration for the first year, folded into the 30 US dollars billed once when you publish. One bill covers the site, the hosting, and the domain, which is one renewal date to remember instead of three.
What is included
A certificate on every domain. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is issued and renewed for you. Visitors reach the secure version of your site without you configuring anything or diarising a renewal.
A global content delivery network (CDN). Your pages are static files served from the network rather than generated by an application server on each request. There is no server to fall over between builds, and the same pages load at similar speed regardless of where the visitor is.
More than one site
An account can hold several websites, each with its own domain, content, design, access list, and bill. The dropdown at the top of the Console sidebar switches between them. Nothing is shared across them, which is deliberate: a mistake on one cannot reach another.
Before you switch a live domain
Work through this in order. A domain cutover is the one step where a mistake is visible to your existing visitors.
1
Build a preview and read every page on the preview address, on a phone as well as a laptop.
2
Add redirects for every address on the old site whose address changed. Old links are the traffic you already have.
3
Check that your contact routes work: forms, email addresses, phone links.
4
Then publish.
If your current site is hosted elsewhere and you are unsure what has to change at your domain registrar, ask before you publish rather than after. Send the domain and where it is registered to hello@inboundsavvy.com and you will get the specific records back.
Next
From nothing to a live site
The whole path from an empty account to a site people can reach.
Build preview, then publish live
How an edit becomes a preview, then a live site, and what to do when a build fails.
Move a page without breaking its links
Keep old links working after a page moves, without a chain.
Still stuck?
Send us the site name and what you were trying to do. A person answers, usually within one business day.