# Your own web address

> Add your address in the Web addresses card on the Publish page, create the two records it gives you at your domain provider, and wait. The Sapilon address keeps working the whole time and afterwards.

Source: https://sapilon.com/docs/project/web-address
Last updated: 2026-09-18

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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](./sign-in-address.md).

## 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.