Guides8 October 202613 min read

How to Connect a Domain to Your Website in 2026 Without Breaking Your Email

How to connect a domain to your website in 2026: the 10 DNS records explained in plain English, the exact records Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, WordPress.com and GitHub Pages ask for, how long changes really take, how to keep your email working, free HTTPS, and how Jobbit connects a domain in one click.

Read in:

The domain is bought, the website is finished, and the builder's help page says to add an A record and a CNAME at your registrar. The registrar's DNS panel has fourteen boxes, a dropdown of record types and a warning that changes may break things. Two hours later the site shows a padlock error and nobody in the office can receive email.

That last part is the usual ending, and it is avoidable. This guide explains how to connect a domain to your website with the records the big platforms actually ask for, read from their own help pages on 7 October 2026, in plain English and in the order that keeps your email alive. It also covers how long the change really takes, why the padlock appears on its own, and the one shortcut that skips the panel altogether.

Built the site on Jobbit? Connect the domain in one click, with DNS and HTTPS done for you, or point any domain you already own at your Jobbit app with a single A record. Try it on Jobbit: 100 free credits a day, no card, and Go is £7 a month.

How we checked this guide

Records from the platforms' own help pages. Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, WordPress.com and GitHub Pages, read on 7 October 2026. Platforms change these, so check the page before you type.
Certificate rules from the CA/Browser Forum. The body that sets how long an HTTPS certificate may last.
Timing from how DNS caching works. Not from the "48 hours" everyone repeats.
Jobbit's behaviour from its live domains page. What it does automatically and what it leaves to you.

The two ways to connect a domain

Pointing: keep your DNS where it is, add records

Your registrar keeps answering questions about your domain, and you add two or three records that send website traffic to the new host. Email, verification records and everything else stay exactly as they were. This is the right choice whenever the domain already has email on it.

Nameservers: hand the whole zone to the host

You replace the registrar's nameservers with the host's, and from then on the host answers every question about the domain. It is simpler to manage in one place, and it is how WordPress.com prefers to work. The catch is that every record you had before, including the MX records that deliver your email, must be recreated at the host before you switch, or they vanish.

The rule: pointing if the domain has email or anything else attached, nameservers only for a fresh domain or when the host also runs your email.

The 10 DNS records in plain English

Record	What it does	Looks like	When you need it	The usual mistake
A	Sends a name to an IPv4 address	@ to 23.227.38.65	A website at a host that gives you an IP address	Leaving the old A record in place alongside the new one
AAAA	Sends a name to an IPv6 address	@ to 2620:0127:f00f:5::	Only when the host gives you one	Adding one that the host did not ask for
CNAME	Makes one name an alias of another name	www to shops.myshopify.com	The www version, and subdomains such as shop or blog	Trying to put a CNAME on the bare domain, which most registrars refuse
ALIAS or ANAME	A CNAME that works on the bare domain	@ to yourapp.host.com	Hosts that give you a hostname rather than an IP	Not every DNS provider offers it
NS	Names the servers that answer for the domain	ns1.wordpress.com	Moving the whole zone to a host	Changing it before copying MX and TXT records across
MX	Says where email for the domain is delivered	10 mx1.yourmailhost.com	Any email at your domain	Deleting it during a website move
TXT (verification)	Proves to a service that you control the domain	google-site-verification=abc123	Search Console, Microsoft 365, platform verification	Pasting the code with quotes or spaces around it
TXT (SPF)	Lists who may send email as your domain	v=spf1 include:yourmailhost.com ~all	Any email sending	Having two SPF records, when only one is allowed
CAA	Names which certificate authorities may issue certificates for the domain	0 issue letsencrypt.org	Optional security hardening	A CAA that blocks the host's certificate authority, so HTTPS never appears
SRV	Points a service at a host and port	_sip._tcp to a phone provider	Phone systems and some chat tools	Deleting one without knowing what it serves

The @ symbol means the bare domain, yourname.co.uk with nothing in front. Some panels want it blank instead. The host field for www is just www, never www.yourname.co.uk, because the panel adds the domain itself.

What the big platforms ask for

Shopify

An A record for @ pointing to 23.227.38.65 and a CNAME for www pointing to shops.myshopify.com, according to Shopify's own guide to connecting a third-party domain. Shopify may give you a different IP address for your region, which is fine. It issues the TLS certificate itself and says the domain can take up to 48 hours to be fully live.

Squarespace

Four A records for @, pointing to 198.185.159.144, 198.185.159.145, 198.49.23.144 and 198.49.23.145, a CNAME for www pointing to ext-cust.squarespace.com, and a verification CNAME with a code Squarespace gives you, pointing to verify.squarespace.com, according to Squarespace's guide to connecting a third-party domain. Squarespace says the connection can take 24 to 48 hours and that a domain without the verification record unlinks after 15 days.

Wix

An A record for @ pointing to 185.230.63.107 and a CNAME for www pointing to pointing.wixdns.net, according to Wix's guide to the pointing method. Wix warns that the site may show as not secure if you add only one of the two records, and quotes up to 48 hours.

WordPress.com

WordPress.com prefers nameservers: ns1.wordpress.com, ns2.wordpress.com and ns3.wordpress.com, with A and CNAME records as the alternative for people who need to keep existing email, according to its guide to connecting an existing domain. It quotes up to 72 hours for a nameserver change.

GitHub Pages

Four A records for @, pointing to 185.199.108.153, 185.199.109.153, 185.199.110.153 and 185.199.111.153, and a CNAME for www pointing to yourusername.github.io, according to GitHub's custom domain guide. GitHub then redirects between the two versions itself.

Jobbit

Two cases. A domain registered on Jobbit connects to any app you have built there in one click: Jobbit already hosts the DNS zone, so it creates the records and issues the HTTPS certificate itself, usually within a minute. A domain registered elsewhere points at a Jobbit app with a single A record to the address shown in the app's domain settings, and the certificate follows. If you need email at the domain, binding it as a sender domain creates the MX, SPF and DKIM records in the zone and verifies them automatically. Our guide on how to buy a domain name covers the registration side.

Step by step, in the order that keeps email working

Screenshot the current zone. Before you touch anything, open the DNS panel and capture every record, especially the MX and TXT lines. This is your undo button.
Add the new website records. The A record or ALIAS for @ and the CNAME for www from the list above. Add; do not delete yet.
Remove the old website records only. If an older A record for @ or CNAME for www points at a previous host, delete those two and nothing else. Leave MX, TXT, SRV and any record you do not recognise.
Add the verification record if the platform asks for one. Squarespace's CNAME, or a TXT line for Search Console or Microsoft 365.
Tell the platform the domain name. Every builder has a domains screen where you type the name and it checks the records.
Test from outside. Open the site on your phone with Wi-Fi off, or use any online DNS checker, and send yourself an email from a personal account. If the email arrives and the site loads, you are done.
Pick www or not, and tell Google. Choose one version as the main one, let the platform redirect the other, and add the domain to Google Search Console so your pages are found under the new address.

How long it really takes

Every DNS record carries a time to live, a number of seconds that tells the world's resolvers how long to keep the old answer before asking again. A record with a TTL of 300 updates almost everywhere within minutes. One with a TTL of 86,400 can take a day. That is where "up to 48 hours" comes from: it is the worst case for a record with a long TTL cached on a slow network, not the normal case. Shopify, Wix and Squarespace quote 24 to 48 hours; WordPress.com quotes up to 72 hours for a nameserver change. In practice most pointing changes are visible in under an hour.

If you are planning a move, lower the TTL on the records you will change to 300 a day before, make the change, and raise it again once everything is stable.

Do not break your email

Email is the thing that breaks because it is the thing people forget. Delivery depends on the MX records, and the records that stop your messages landing in spam depend on TXT lines for SPF and DKIM, plus a DMARC policy. None of them has anything to do with the website, and all of them live in the same panel.

Three protections. Never delete a record you did not add for the website. If you switch nameservers, recreate every MX and TXT record at the new host first, then switch. And after any change, send a test email from outside and reply to it, because a broken MX record fails silently: the sender gets a bounce and you get nothing. SPF and DKIM are the two TXT records your email provider gives you; copy them exactly.

HTTPS without buying anything

The padlock comes from a certificate, and in 2026 you should never pay for one. Let's Encrypt issues them free, and Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, WordPress.com, GitHub Pages and Jobbit all obtain and renew certificates for connected domains automatically. The only things that stop it are a missing www record, a CAA record that names a different authority, or a DNS change that has not reached the platform yet. Give it an hour before you worry.

Automation is becoming compulsory rather than convenient. The CA/Browser Forum, which sets the rules for public certificates, has cut the maximum certificate lifetime to 200 days from 15 March 2026, to 100 days from 15 March 2027 and to 47 days from 15 March 2029, as The Register reported. A certificate that must be renewed every six weeks is not a job for a human with a calendar. Two endings go further: .app and .dev are on the browser HSTS preload list, so a site on them loads only over HTTPS, according to Google Registry.

6 problems and their fixes

"Not secure" or a padlock error. Usually the www record is missing, the certificate is still being issued, or a CAA record blocks it. Check the two records, wait an hour, then check for a CAA line.
Works without www but not with it, or the reverse. One of the two records is missing or points at the old host. Both must exist.
The old site still appears. Your network has cached the old answer. Try your phone on mobile data, or wait for the TTL to run out.
Squarespace disconnected the domain after two weeks. The verification CNAME was missing or had a typo. Add it and reconnect.
Email stopped after the change. An MX record was deleted or the nameservers changed without recreating it. Restore it from your screenshot.
The registrar will not accept a CNAME for @. That is correct behaviour. Use the A records the platform gives, or an ALIAS record if your DNS provider offers one.

How an AI agent helps connect a domain

ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Manus and Meta's Muse can all explain what a CNAME is. An agent that can read your zone and act on it does the job.

Reads your current records. Paste the panel or a screenshot and it tells you which records are the website, which are email, and which to leave alone.
Writes the exact records for your platform. Host, type, value and TTL, in the format your registrar's panel uses, with the old records to remove listed separately.
Checks propagation and the certificate. It looks the domain up from the outside and tells you when the records and the padlock are live.
Connects it for you on Jobbit. A domain registered on Jobbit connects in one click, and an external domain needs one A record. Email sender records are created and verified automatically.
Builds the site the domain is for. If the site does not exist yet, the agent builds it, and Go at £7 a month keeps one small app live on your own domain. Our guide to getting a free website covers the options, and how much a website costs shows what you would otherwise pay.
Keeps watch. It reminds you before the domain renews and checks the site is still up.

Your plan for today

First 10 minutes: screenshot the DNS zone and find your platform's help page for connecting a domain.
Next 10 minutes: add the A or ALIAS record and the www CNAME, plus any verification record.
Next 10 minutes: enter the domain on the platform's domains screen and send yourself a test email.
An hour later: check the padlock, choose www or not, and add the domain to Search Console. Or skip all of it and connect the domain on Jobbit in one click.

Frequently asked questions

How do I connect my domain to my website?

Add the records your platform asks for at the company that runs your domain's DNS: usually an A record for the bare domain and a CNAME for www. Then enter the domain on the platform's domains screen and wait for the records to be seen.

What is an A record?

An A record sends a name to an IPv4 address, such as yourname.co.uk to 23.227.38.65. It is how a browser finds the server that holds your website.

What is the difference between an A record and a CNAME?

An A record points to an IP address; a CNAME points to another name, which is then looked up in turn. Platforms use A records for the bare domain and a CNAME for www because most registrars will not allow a CNAME on the bare domain.

How long does it take to connect a domain?

Minutes to a few hours in most cases. Platforms quote up to 48 hours, and WordPress.com up to 72 hours for a nameserver change, because old records can be cached for as long as their time to live allows.

Will connecting my domain break my email?

Not if you only add the website records and leave the MX and TXT records alone. Email breaks when MX records are deleted or when nameservers are changed without recreating the email records at the new host.

Do I need to buy an SSL certificate?

No. Let's Encrypt issues certificates free, and every major platform obtains and renews them automatically for a connected domain. Pay for one only if a specialist host asks you to, which is rare in 2026.

Can an AI agent connect my domain for me?

On Jobbit a domain registered there connects to your app in one click, and a domain from elsewhere needs a single A record. The agent can also read your existing records, write the ones your platform needs and check the result. The Free plan gives 100 credits a day with no card, and Go is £7 a month for one small app on your own domain.

Related guides

Guides