Some agents have their own custom domain with registrars such as GoDaddy or Google Domains, and would like to point the domain to their Placester site. This article will walk you through this process. 

In order to take care of mapping your Domain to your Placester site, you will need to change both your A-Record (IP address) and CNAME (hosting platform) to Placester specific settings. If you run into any trouble, we recommend speaking directly with your provider as it is their product. You can find articles specific to certain popular domain registrars here.

Having your provider map your domain

If you are going to have your provider take care of Domain Mapping for you.  You will want to provide them with the following settings for pointing your site to Placester.

1. Forwarding: OFF

2. Nameservers: Set to DEFAULT

3. A-Record: 184.169.141.142

4. CNAME: domains.myrealestateplatform.com   

After this is done move down to the bottom of the document and follow the instructions for your Placester site.

Mapping your domain on your own

To take care of domain mapping, you’ll need to log into your DNS management platform and change the A-Record and the CName. These can usually be found within the Domain Name Systems (DNS) section or the DNS Zone File.

A-Record:

• Points to the IP Address 184.169.141.142
• Host should be @ or * depending on the registrar

CNAME:

• Points to domains.myrealestateplatform.com
• Host should be www

Once you’ve completed these settings, log in at placester.com to access the back end of your site and complete the final step for domain mapping.

Custom Domain Slide Out

  Next, scroll down on the Site Settings page and click on the Custom Domain link. 

Within the custom domain slide out, add the custom domain that you're looking to use. Use only lowercase letters, and be sure to include “www” when adding in your URL. Example: www.placester.com

Click Add Domain, then click Save.

Troubleshooting

If you've made all of these changes and are finding that your site still isn't loading, here are some potential causes: 

1. Caching: You have a cached copy of the site on your browser. Try clearing your cache, using a new browser or testing the site on a mobile device.

2. Propagation: DNS adjustments take longer to propagate with certain domain registrars. We like to test and make sure everything has propagated using www.WhatsMyDNS.com.

3. Errors in Site Settings > Custom Domain: make sure that you included the www before the custom domain and you didn't use any capital letters. Otherwise, the site will not load.

Pro Tip: DNS Tools

Here are some DNS tools that we recommend: 

- Use WhoIs.com to find out where a domain is registered and the status of a domain
- Use WhatsMyDNS.net to check the current DNS records of a domain

Pro Tip: Purchasing a Custom Domain

Don’t have a Custom URL yet? We recommend purchasing from sites such as GoDaddy.com and Hover.com, which offer simple DNS management tools. You can find out more about this here.

Questions?