Your own web address

Every server Sapilon builds for you already has a web address — something like web.your-project.sapilon.com. It works from the moment the server exists, and it keeps working forever. Nothing on this page takes it away.

What this page adds is your own address: shop.example.com, or app.yourcompany.com, or whatever you have bought. Your app then answers on both.

What you need first

A domain you own, and the ability to add records to it — that is usually a page at whoever you bought the domain from (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Cloudflare, your hosting company). If you can get to that page, you can do this.

You do not need to move your domain to us, change your nameservers, or cancel anything.

Two records, one visit

You add two records, and the page gives you both at once so you only go to your domain provider once.

One proves the address is yours. Nobody can hand out a secure address for a domain they do not control, so we ask the certificate authority for a certificate, and it gives back a record only the domain’s owner could add.

The other sends visitors to your app. It points your address at the app.

Create both, then wait. The order you type them in does not matter — nothing goes live until the certificate is issued and your address is connected, which happens on its own.

Leave the verification record in place. It is not a one-time thing: it is what renews your security certificate every year, automatically. Deleting it later breaks the address.

Adding an address

1. Open Go Live → Publish, pick the server you want, and in the Web addresses card choose Set my custom domain address.
2. Type the address people will use, like shop.example.com.
3. Copy both records into your domain provider, exactly as written — the name and the value, with nothing added and nothing trimmed.
4. Wait. The page checks every few seconds and moves itself along.
5. The address goes live, usually within minutes.

If nothing happens for more than an hour, the record almost certainly isn’t quite right. The most common causes are a provider that silently appends your domain to the name (so it ends up with the domain twice), and a copied value with a stray space at the end.

Whole domains

shop.example.com is a name under a domain, and every provider can point one at another name.

example.com on its own — the whole domain, with nothing in front — is different. The kind of record we need isn’t allowed there by the rules of DNS, and providers work around it in three different ways:

• Some can do it anyway, under a name like ALIAS, ANAME, or CNAME flattening. If yours offers one of these, use it with the value we give you and everything works.
• Some cannot. Then use www.example.com instead, and set up a redirect at your provider from example.com to it. Most providers offer redirects as a one-click option.
• Some let you move your whole domain to them and then handle it. That is a bigger decision than this page, and you do not need it to go live.

The page tells you which situation you are in when you type a whole domain.

Moving an address that is already in use

If the address currently points at an existing site, plan the switch:

• A day or two before, lower that record’s TTL at your provider to five minutes. TTL is how long the rest of the internet is allowed to remember the old answer, and lowering it first is what makes the switch quick rather than slow.
• Add only the verification record first, and leave the traffic record until the address shows as secured. Adding the traffic record early sends visitors to an address that cannot answer securely yet, and their browser shows a warning instead of your app.
• Once it is secured, change the traffic record. Visitors move over within the TTL you set.

What stays on the Sapilon address

Your app’s screens and its API move to your address. A few things stay where they are, and that is deliberate — they are plumbing, not things your customers see or type:

• Files and images your app serves are delivered from the same place as before.
• Emails your app sends come from the address set up on the Email page.
• The Sapilon address itself keeps working, which is what makes this safe: if anything goes wrong with your domain, your app is still reachable.

Signing in is the exception — it has its own address, and moving it is a separate, slower decision. See Moving the sign-in page.

Removing an address

Remove it on the same page. Your app goes back to answering on the Sapilon address alone, and the records at your provider can then be deleted. Nothing about your app, your data, or your users changes.