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Onboard a domain

After you onboard your domain, Cloudflare will act as the reverse proxy and DNS provider for your site.

This guide applies to existing domains that were purchased from another provider, and will use a full DNS setup, which is the most common configuration. To set this up, you will have to complete a few steps at Cloudflare, but also update some settings at your domain registrar1, and at your previous DNS provider (if you were using one).

1. Add your domain

  1. Log in to the Cloudflare dashboard.

    Go to Domains

  2. Select Onboard a domain.

  3. Enter your website's apex domain (for example, example.com), choose how you would like to add your DNS records, and select Continue.

  4. Select a plan ↗.

2. Review DNS records

Your DNS records must be accurate for your domain to work properly. If you don't know what DNS records are, consider the video below for a quick explanation.

  1. Since the quick scan is not guaranteed to find all existing DNS records, you need to review your records, paying special attention to the following:

    • Zone apex records (example.com)

      More about zone apex records

      Zone apex refers to the domain or subdomain that you are adding to Cloudflare.

      Usually, the zone apex record makes your domain accessible by visitors. In this case, the necessary record type (A, AAAA, or CNAME) and its content will depend on the provider that hosts your website or application.

      If you are using Cloudflare Workers, refer to Custom domains.

      If you are using other providers, look for their guidance on how to connect domains managed on external DNS services. Then, make sure you have the records required by your hosting provider on your DNS records table at Cloudflare.

    • Subdomain records (www.example.com or blog.example.com)

      More about subdomain records

      Most subdomains serve a specific purpose within the overall context of your website. For example, blog.example.com might be your blog, support.example.com could be your customer help portal, and store.example.com would be your e-commerce site.

      Even if you do not require specific subdomains, you might want to set up at least a subdomain record on www. It will usually point to the same content as what you have on the apex domain (example.com) or use a redirect. Having a subdomain DNS record on www helps guarantee that a visitor who types www. in front of your domain address can still find your website or application.

    • Email records

      More about email records

      Depending on your business needs, you can configure DNS records so that you can use your domain to receive emails, receive and send emails from your domain, or prevent others from sending emails on your behalf (spoofing).

      Below are some examples of what those DNS records might look like. The exact values for your DNS mail records depend on your email provider. If you have issues, review the Troubleshooting and contact your email service provider to confirm your DNS records are correct.

      TypeNameContentProxy statusTTL
      Amail192.0.2.1DNS OnlyAuto
      MXexample.com5 john.mx.example-server.testDNS OnlyAuto
      TXT_dmarc"v=DMARC1; p=reject; sp=...DNS OnlyAuto
      TXT*._domainkey"v=DKIM1; k=rsa; p=..."DNS OnlyAuto
      TXTexample.com"v=spf1 ip4:..."DNS OnlyAuto

  2. If you find any missing records, manually add those records.

  3. Depending on your site setup, you may want to adjust the proxy status for certain A, AAAA, or CNAME records. Each record has a proxy status toggle:

    • Proxied (orange cloud): web traffic goes through the Cloudflare network, which provides caching, DDoS protection, and other security features.
    • DNS only (gray cloud): Cloudflare returns the DNS record value but does not proxy traffic. Use this for CNAME records that verify your domain for third-party services.

  4. Select Continue.

3. Update nameservers

Your domain will be assigned two authoritative Cloudflare nameservers. Nameservers are specialized servers that store your domain's DNS records and "answer" requests from browsers by providing the specific IP address needed to connect to your website.

Usually, you need to add these nameservers at your registrar. Refer to Update nameservers for more information.

Provider-specific instructions

This is not an exhaustive list of provider-specific instructions, but the following links may be helpful:

4. Complete SSL/TLS setup

To prevent insecure connections and visitor browser errors, review your SSL/TLS certificates. Many Cloudflare services will automatically protect and speed up your web traffic after your nameservers are updated and your DNS records are proxied. For further guidance, refer to Proxy status.

If you encounter unexpected results when changing your nameservers, refer to the DNS Full Setup troubleshooting.

Further options

Other DNS setups

  • To use Cloudflare as a reverse proxy but maintain your DNS provider, refer to partial setup.
  • To use one or more DNS providers, refer to DNS Zone transfers.
  • Enterprise customers can onboard lower-level subdomains using Subdomain setup.

Minimize downtime

  • If your domain is particularly sensitive to downtime, review our suggestions to minimize downtime.

Footnotes

  1. The provider you purchased your domain from ↩

  2. Enterprise customers can onboard these using Subdomain setup. ↩