DNS
From Shopify Wiki
Shopify gives you a free xxx.myshopify.com style domain for your store. For most customers this is enough but some customers want the extra aesthetics and recognition value that come from a real www.myshop.com style address.
This process can be relatively easy, but there is a little work that goes into setting it up. Since some registrars don't offer adequate support for such setups on their documentation, you will likely want to contact them directly if you run into trouble.
In this section we collect tips and tricks as well as tutorials for the most popular registrars.
Contents |
Popular Registrars
- Godaddy
- NameCheap
- iWantMyName
- DnsMadeEasy
- NetworkSolutions
- LiquidNet
- Bluehost
- MyDomain.com
- online.net
Feel free to edit or add your own findings in the form of a new guide here. We appreciate it! :-)
Basic Procedure
CNAME records can be useful when you want a subdomain to point to a computer outside of your domain, such as with Shopify. For example, you might want "shop.example.com" to go to your shop. Instead of putting in the IP address, you could put in "shop.example.com CNAME mystore.myshopify.com", so that if the IP address of the servers changed, you wouldn't have to make any changes to restore service.
- Getting Started
You need to be able to edit your domain's DNS records. The best way to find out if you can do this is to contact your domain name registrar or your web hosting provider. They should be able to tell you how to do the next step of this overview.
- Next Step - Create your CNAME records
Assuming you want to host your shop at shop.example.com, you would add the following CNAME entry to your example.com domain: shop CNAME example.myshopify.com.
- Enter the domain name(s) you'll be using
After that is done you will now need to add shop.example.com to your claimed addresses in your DNS & Domains area of your admin. All requests which make it to our servers with the domains you claimed will be routed to your shop. If you don't complete this step, your domain will just point to a Shopify page claiming that it cannot find the shop you are looking for.
Click "I would like to claim another Hostname…", Enter the host name, and click Claim this hostname.
You may want to make that entry your Primary domain. To do this, click "make this my primary domain".
Once done correctly it should look like this:
Troubleshooting
- A records
Note: Do not use an A record (IP Address) to point your domain to Shopify. IP addresses are subject to change over time, which can leave your shop inaccessible.
- Can't find your registrar here? Not sure how to proceed?
Try using one of the existing tutorials as a guide and contact the Support staff at your Domain host for more assistance. (Then for extra points, come back and contribute your steps as a new entry to help others ! =
Contributing
Feel like contributing your findings to help others with this process?
Please create a login for the wiki and contribute your findings back in the form of a new guide!
External resources
- Domain name system explained at Wikipedia
CNAME Status
- What does failed mean in my DNS & Domains page under Status?
Shopify checks your DNS records for consistency and accuracy, making sure that you are using the correct method for forwarding your Domain host to Shopify.
Failed means you are not using the correct CNAME method for DNS. You may have used an A record or a frameset, this may appear to work right now but will fail in the future if the Shopify IP address changes.
- What should I do next?
You must use a CNAME record rather than a IP address, because CNAME is not subject to change like IP address is.
Please keep in mind that DNS changes can take time to propagate, so it may be that the problem you are experiencing will resolve itself shortly if changes have recently been made. Please allow up to 48 hours for DNS changes to propagate between the world-DNS servers.


