GoDaddy users*
As GoDaddy’s interface is quite unique and does not quite work like all the other domain hosting companies, we’ve prepared a separate article to cover GoDaddy users. If you’re not a GoDaddy user, you can ignore this particular article and go back to our standard Custom Domain integration articles.
*Note: The following video is not a full detail instruction on how to setup your GoDaddy workaround and you will still want to read all our written instructions in full to complete your setup.
Before we begin, so you know where we are going…
We want to take a moment to go over some details if you happen to be using GoDaddy as your primary domain provider.
There will be a lot to unpack here as GoDaddy is very unique in how their system runs compared to most domain providers. If you use our generic instructions for custom domains, then you will see the following behavior:
- https://yourDomain.com – Won’t work
- http://yourDomain.com – Won’t work
- yourDomain.com – Won’t work
- https://www.yourDomain.com – Works
- http://www.yourDomain.com – Works
- www.yourDomain.com – Works
This is because the step shown here: https://documentation.kartra.com/forward-yourdomain-com-to-www-yourdomain-com/ cannot be executed via the interface of GoDaddy as they don’t allow a “blank” field to be located in the forward setup.
So what can you do to fix this? Well we do have a workaround but even that will not be ideal as it will have the following result:
- https://yourDomain.com – Won’t work
- http://yourDomain.com –Works
- yourDomain.com –Works
- https://www.yourDomain.com –Won’t work
- http://www.yourDomain.com – Works
- www.yourDomain.com – Works
Now at this point you may have noticed anything with https is not working, this is because we are using a forward to redirect customers to the actually secured website and the URL itself cannot be secured by definition. The take away is that the URL will function as it does above but despite that you can be assured the content itself once they get forwarded will be secure. One last thing, if you use forward with masking then it will show as not secure while a forward without masking will show as secure.
You want to use the classic method?
So after all of this, we are not left with a completely ideal solution. This is due to the odd nature of GoDaddy’s interface and there is nothing on our end we can do about it. So how you proceed here is really up to you. You can use either of the options I mentioned above or you can try a different domain provider where our generic instructions will work as expected. What decision you make is entirely up to you.
But lets say you want to use our classic method and get the following settings:
- https://yourDomain.com – Won’t work
- http://yourDomain.com – Won’t work
- yourDomain.com – Won’t work
- https://www.yourDomain.com – Works
- http://www.yourDomain.com – Works
- www.yourDomain.com – Works
You will want to go here: https://documentation.kartra.com/category/custom-domains/ and follow all our instructions EXCLUDING the section on setting up a redirect/forward. As this feature does not work in GoDaddy and you would merely want to setup the CNAME only.
For those who want to utilize our workaround, follow the instructions in the sections below.
Note: If you use the “www” based CNAME and the redirect option, then all versions of your domains will not work as both the CNAME and redirect will both try to use the same URL and clash with each other. DO NOT setup a “www” based CNAME with a redirect/forward as described in the workaround instructions or the primary instructions.
How to set up a domain with GoDaddy (using our workaround)
We will now cover the work around that will yield the following behaviors:
- https://yourDomain.com – Won’t work
- http://yourDomain.com –Works
- yourDomain.com –Works
- https://www.yourDomain.com –Won’t work
- http://www.yourDomain.com – Works
- www.yourDomain.com – Works
From these instructions, you will want to use a subdomain option in Kartra. Domain Names do not work correctly with GoDaddy, but we will cover a remedy for that in the instructions below. In the end you will have two major steps that must be done on GoDaddy.
- Step 1 ) Add A CName
- Step 2) Setting up Your Forward.
The second step is very important for your GoDaddy domain to work properly.
Afterwards you will need to go back to Kartra to:
- Confirm Kartra Index and 404 Pages
- Set up your domain on Pages, memberships, video pages, and more
Steps Inside GoDaddy:
1 . Add a CNAME to Your Subdomain Domain
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- Visit “Add a CNAME Record” for GoDaddy’s instructions on how to add a CNAME record.
- In the “Type” drop-down menu, select “CNAME”
- In the “Host” field, enter the subdomain to which the CNAME applies
- For example, you’d enter “sales” if you’re using “sales.mysite.com” or “pages” for “pages.mydomain.com”
- Reminder only your subdomain will work.
- In the “Points To” field, enter “YOURID.kartra.com “
- Leave the “TTL” field as “1 Hour”
- Click Save to update the changes you’ve made
Changes can take up to 48 hours to propagate, but when your domain is ready to be used, it will be marked in your Kartra account as “Connected” under your Custom Domains
2 . Setting Up Your Domain Forward:
If you want your whole domain to go to Kartra, you will need to do the following in GoDaddy.
Set up DNS
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- Click “ DNS” tab within your domain portfolio.
- Click the “Forwarding” tab which should appear on the next line.
-
- From there you can then select the “edit” or pencil icon on the domain for which you are connecting to Kartra.
Set up the Forward
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- Under “Forward to” (Marked #1 Below) select: https://
- Enter the URL (pages.mydomain.com) that you want to forward your domain to.
- Select your “Forward type”: “Permanent (301)” (Marked #2 Below)
- Select your “Settings”: “Forward only:” (Marked #3 Below) or “Forward with masking”. Just be mindful that masking will remove the standard URL of the page you wish to use for your domain and replace them with your primary domain, but it will not show as secured (even though it is; assuming it is a Kartra page).
*Please Note: The “FORWARD TO” option must be HTTPS.
To automatically update your nameservers to accommodate your forwarding changes, check “Update my DNS setting to support this change.” and click Save.
*Please Note: That the word “pages” here is just a placeholder and you can use any word you wish when making the sub-domain.
*Important Note: By default the GoDaddy DNS records will have a CNAME for “www” connecting to “@” with TTL for 1 hour. This is actually required for our setup, but as long as you do not delete this default option then your GoDaddy setup will work as per our instructions here. If you do happen to delete the CNAME for “www” that points to the host “@”, then please add this back in after you setup the information outlined in this documentation.
Steps Inside Kartra
1 . Confirm Your Index and 404 Pages
This part of the process is the same for all domain registrars, next you want to confirm your Custom Domain settings in Kartra. Go to your profile then Custom Domains, click edit.
From here you will set up an Index page, which is the first page of your domain. And choose an error page which is also called a 404 (not found) page.
You can use external or you can choose a page you’ve created on Kartra.
NOTE: You can not use an external page that is the same domain as what you have used for Kartra. This will create a infinite loop.
Additional NOTE: In our image examples we use the domain “www.Katiekartra.com” and the username Katiekartra, this is merely an example of a domain and Kartra username, which can be any custom domain and username created by the Kartra user such as “www.bobsbarginbin.com”. The word Kartra is not required in either the domain or username of the user and we even recommend you don’t use the word Kartra except during the setup of the CNAME record where you must utilize “username.kartra.com”; where you replace username with your Kartra username. Also, they don’t have to be the same, as your domain and username can be different.
2 . Set up your Kartra Pages
You can choose to have more that one domain connected to Kartra, or may choose to use your Kartra based link. Thus you will need to set up the domain name for each page (membership etc). For each that you want changed as adding a custom domain will not apply to all your content, go to Pages, choose “Get Link” then the pencil, so you can edit and choose which domain you want to use (Marked #1 Below)
Rename (Marked #2 Below) and Save (marked #3 Below).
You can also do this with any other content with similar link options (such as memberships, calendars, helpdesks, and etc.)