Connecting your custom domain may feel intimidating at first, but we're here to help!
This guide will go over the steps you'll need to take to get your Bluehost domain connected to your Podia site.
Adding your custom domain to Podia
To set up your custom domain, go to Settings > Domain and enter the custom domain you'd like your Podia Site to live on.
You can either link up your root domain (e.g. www.yourdomain.com) or a subdomain (e.g. courses.yourdomain.com, learn.yourdomain.com, shop.yourdomain.com, etc.)
Add a CNAME record in Bluehost
Login to Bluehost and select Domains from the sidebar.
Once there, click the Settings button for the domain you want to assign to your Podia account.
On the following page, you will scroll down to the Advanced Tools section, and choose Manage, beside Advanced DNS Records.
On the next page, you'll select Add Record.
In the form that appears, you will create a CNAME record and add the values listed below.
Refers to
www (if you'd like to use a root www.yourdomain.com)
OR
If you want to use a custom subdomain, you will select
Other host
+ add a host name
courses, academy, learn (that will depend on the subdomain you'd like to use, such as: courses.yourdomain.com, academy.yourdomain.com, learn.yourdomain.com, etc.)
Alias to
sites.podia.com (this is the exact value you need to add. Do NOT change this to your Podia subdomain or it will not work)
TTL
You can use the automatic setting of 1 hour.
Examples
Here's how it would look like if you'd like to connect a domain such as www.yourdomain.com to Podia:
And here's how it would look like if you'd like to connect a domain such as academy.yourdomain.com to Podia.
After all of this information is input, click Add to save your changes!
For users who have opted to use their root domain with a CNAME record named www, there is one last step outlined below.
Setting up forwarding to the naked domain
To ensure that your users will have access to your site via the non-www version of your address you will need to set up forwarding through a third party in order to indicate that the non-www version should load the www version of your site.
For example, if you connected your custom domain to Podia with www.mysite.com, we need to use a third party to instruct mysite.com to direct to www.mysite.com.
To accomplish this, you can create a secondary CNAME record using the same steps as above, but assigning it to the root domain referring to the @ symbol.
Save that record, and you'll be all set!
FAQ & Troubleshooting
Help! I'm getting an error message when I try to add my CNAME record!
Help! I'm getting an error message when I try to add my CNAME record!
Most of the time when folks run into an error message during the adding of their CNAME in Bluehost, it is because of a duplicate entry.
This is an easy fix! You will simply need to check your existing dns records to ensure that you are not already using the CNAME name that you're trying to set up.
Once you locate the duplicate entry, you can delete it and try again to create your Podia record.
Bluehost is asking for Podia's IP address. Can I have it?
Bluehost is asking for Podia's IP address. Can I have it?
To connect a CNAME, an IP address won't be necessary! We rotate IPs of our servers regularly, as our developers are always rolling out updated servers with the latest security patches and software updates. It's a measure that keeps you and your audience more secure! 💪
We encourage you to follow the steps outlined in this article to connect a CNAME record rather than an A record.
Everything's set up, but my CNAME still isn't working!
Everything's set up, but my CNAME still isn't working!
If 48 hours have passed and your CNAME isn't working, double-check that you have the correct values in the right fields. It needs to be sites.podia.com. No other value will work.
Still stuck? Send us an email with screenshots of your current DNS settings alongside any error messages that you're receiving, and we'll work together with you to resolve the issue!