Why can't I just directly use 'yourdomain.com' without the redirect?
This is a common question, and unfortunately the full answer requires a bit of explanation.
First, we insist you create your CNAME records for your custom domain that points to the values provided in our Partner portal instead of an A record that points to a particular server's IP address. The reason we do this is that we intend on continually upgrading our infrastructure, adding servers in multiple distributed locations to serve up pages faster worldwide, and if you pointed your custom domain at one particular IP address, your pages would break as we add servers. That would be bad.
Now, there are apparently some mail servers out there that don't properly handle a mix of CNAME and MX records for the same name. The MX record is how mail servers know where to deliver your mail. So if you happened to setup something like the following:
yourdomain.com CNAME value provided yourdomain.com MX mail.yourdomain.com
some mail servers would look at this, and use the CNAME instead of the MX, resulting in them attempting to deliver mail to us and ultimately in you not receiving your email (with the dedicated domain only). That would also be bad. Even worse, we've encountered some DNS servers that won't resolve this properly at all, resulting in some (but not all) visitors not being able to reach your pages.
How do I set up the redirect from my "naked" domain to "www.mydomain.com"?
There are a number ways of accomplishing this, here are just a few:
- Your best bet is to find a "Redirects" section in your host/DNS control panel and configure it there. You might also try emailing your Host/DNS support team with the request.
- There is also a great service called WWWizer which will handle the redirect for you and for free. All you need to do is create an A Record that points to their IP address and they'll 301 your naked domain traffic over to your www'd domain. Instapage can't officially vouch for the service, but we've used them a few times and it works great! All you need to do to redirect visitors from example.com to www.example.com is: point your naked domain A-record to the IP address 174.129.25.170. And it will start to work as soon as your DNS updates. Even no sign up necessary.
Have more questions? Contact us.