Connect your domain – Leadpages Knowledge Base

Every page you publish within Leadpages is automatically hosted on our servers at the Leadpages Domain you created when setting up your account, for example:

https://yoursubdomain.lpages.co/your-page-name

Are you brand new to the world of domains? Get familiar with these terms in our blog post here before digging into domain connection.

If you already own a domain, this guide will show you how you can easily connect your domain to your Leadpages account and publish to that domain (i.e. https://yourwebsite.com/your-page-name) instead of your Leadpages domain.

If you have hosting with a provider separate from where you purchased the domain, simply follow the CNAME instructions below, but perform them at your hosting service's cPanel, rather than domain provider.

Already have a site published at your domain?

If you already have a website on the domain you want to connect to Leadpages, we would recommend connecting a subdomain. You can still connect your domain to Leadpages, you'll just want to use a subdomain other than www using the same steps below.

Without a subdomain, connecting your domain to Leadpages with an existing site there will result in that site being overridden by Leadpages. Your site would not be deleted, but essentially hidden and inaccessible behind your Leadpages content.

For example, if you have a site published to www.yoursite.com, when connecting your domain to Leadpages, use a custom subdomain like so:

subdomain.yoursite.com

Learn more about subdomains below.

The fine print

There are a couple things you should know before connecting your domain.

Pages are still hosted on our servers—we do not publish pages to your server directly.
We’ll automatically secure all connected domains with an SSL certificate and HTTPS server. Get security details →
A Pro or Advanced subscription is required to connect multiple domains to your Leadpages account. Learn more here.
If you'd like to redirect a root domain to a subdomain or vice versa, you'll want to create both a CNAME and A Record in your domain provider settings as indicated below.
For landing pages, there are alternative publishing options in addition to connecting your domain.

Root domain or subdomain

If you own a domain, you can connect it to Leadpages simply using your root domain or with a subdomain of your choice.

Root domain

A root domain is a domain without a subdomain like www before it. Publishing to a root domain is a great option if you own your domain but do not have a site built at that domain and would like to use it for publishing pages.

Once connected, publishing your pages to a root domain would look something like this:

https://yourwebsite.com/your-page-name

Subdomain

A subdomain comes before your root domain and allows you to publish content to the same domain while also categorizing or putting your content in a subfolder of sorts.

This is a good option if you have a live website you built outside of Leadpages published to your root domain.

Once connected, you’ll be able to publish pages to a subdomain like so:

https://subdomain.yourwebsite.com/your-page-name

For example, your URLs could look like this:

https://www.leadpages.net/blog

https://sales.leadpages.net

Purchase a domain

You can purchase a GoDaddy domain and connect it automatically to your Leadpages account by clicking Domains and select "Purchase a Domain."

Connection guide

Here’s how to connect your domain to Leadpages:

Step 1: Add your domain to Leadpages

Click Domains in your navigation menu.
Click Connect A Domain.
Enter the domain URL you'd like to connect to Leadpages
Depending on your domain URL, click "Yes" and check the box to acknowledge that any information previously published there will be overridden. Or "No" if there is no content at that domain URL.
Click Next and follow the in-app prompts. Depending on the URL you entered, Leadpages will automatically give you the next steps to take within your domain provider settings in order to connect.

NOTE: Follow the steps given in the Leadpages app. You must complete these CNAME and/or A Record steps in your domain provider to make connection.

Step 2: Create a CNAME and/or A Record with your domain provider

Now, you’ll need to add a CNAME and/or A Record to your domain provider settings, depending on the domain URL you are trying to connect.

TIP: If your domain and hosting provider is GoDaddy or 1&1 IONOS, you'll have the option to automatically connect your domain, without having to edit your provider's DNS settings.

To publish to a root domain (i.e. yourwebsite.com), you'll create an A Record in your domain provider settings.

A Record to create
- Host (also called: Name, Hostname, @): @
- Value (also called: Points to, IP Address): 35.202.21.90

To publish to a subdomain (i.e. www.yourwebsite.com or sales.yourwebsite.com), you'll create a CNAME Record in your domain provider settings.

CNAME Record to create
- Host (also called: Name, Hostname): www (or the subdomain you chose)
- CNAME (also called: Target, Points to, Address, Alias): custom-proxy.leadpages.net

After entering in a root domain or a domain with a subdomain in Step 1, you'll receive step-by-step directions right within Leadpages. Follow the steps to finish your domain connection.

Redirect root domain to subdomain or vice versa

If you'd like to redirect a root domain you've connected in Leadpages to a www subdomain or vice versa, you'll want to create both a CNAME and A Record in your domain provider settings.

While connecting your domain to Leadpages, step-by-step directions will appear for redirecting.

Once connected and redirected, your root domain and subdomain will be displayed like so (Click the down_angle button to view the redirect.):

TIP: Once your domain is connected, a Leadpages coming soon page will be placed there until you choose to publish something to it. Follow the steps below to publish to your domain.

We have step-by-step CNAME & A Record guides below for GoDaddy and Namecheap, similar to the instructions that will appear when connecting your domain in Leadpages.

NOTE: It can take anywhere from a few minutes to 24 hours for your domain provider to make the connection with Leadpages and properly map your domain. Automatic redirects are available in Leadpages between a root domain and www subdomain.

If you still see a “Pending Connection” message after 24 hours, follow the publishing steps below, which can sometimes resolve the issue. Otherwise, don’t hesitate to contact our amazing support team.

Connect additional domains

A Pro or Advanced subscription is required in order to connect multiple domains to your Leadpages account.

Standard: connect 1 domain
Pro: connect up to 3 domains
Advanced: connect up to 50 domains
- Sub-accounts: connect up to 50 domains

To connect an additional domain you own, simply start with step 1 above.

NOTE: For accounts with more than 20 domain connections, there is a limit of 20 subdomains (CNAMEs) under the same root domain for all Leadpages accounts. Each of these subdomains will count as one connection.

If you currently have a Standard subscription and would like to upgrade, learn how here.

Publish to your domain

Leadpages Site

Once you've got your domain connected to your Leadpages account, follow the steps in this article to publish your site there.

Homepage and 404 Error Page

NOTE: If you have a Leadpages Site published to your domain connected to Leadpages, your homepage and 404 error page are set up within the sites builder.

Once you've connected your domain in Leadpages, you can select specific landing pages you have created as your domain's homepage as well as a 404 error page for when visitors try to access an old page on your site or have mis-typed the page slug.

Under Domains in your account settings, click the down_angle button, then Select next to "Homepage" and/or "404 Error Page" to set your landing page.

Standalone pages

Follow these steps to publish any page to your domain:

Click Landing Pages in your navigation menu, open the actions menu more for your page, then select Publishing Options.
Under "Domain," click the drop-down.
Select your domain and enter a URL “slug”, which will appear at the end of your URL: www.yourdomain.com/your-awesome-page.
Click Done.

CNAME & A Record setup examples

GoDaddy CNAME & A Record step-by-step

After performing Step 1 above, follow these steps inside your GoDaddy account in order to connect your domain.

In the example below, our domain is leadpageseducationtest.com. We show both a CNAME for the subdomain www and an A Record for connecting the root domain.

Inside GoDaddy, click "My Products," then DNS.
If you'd like to connect to your root domain, skip to step 4 below. You may already have a CNAME record with the name www. Click the pencil icon to edit it. (If you don't already have a CNAME record with the name www, or plan to use a subdomain other than www, click ADD)
Edit the field to read Host: www and Points to: custom-proxy.leadpages.net
If you only want to set up a CNAME Record, skip to step 6. To set up an A Record and connect to your root domain, you may already have an A Record created. Click the pencil icon to edit it. (If you don't already have an A Record, click ADD)
Edit the field to read Host: @ and Points to: 35.202.21.90
Click Save.
It may take up to 24 hours for the domain to be connected within Leadpages, however, once connected your domain will be listed under Domains in your account settings within Leadpages as Connected and Secure.

Namecheap CNAME & A Record step-by-step

After performing Step 1 above, follow these steps inside your Namecheap account in order to connect your domain.

In the example below, our domain is leadpagestest.services. We show both a CNAME for the subdomain www and an A Record for connecting the root domain.

NOTE: Namecheap's PremiumDNS setting must be turned off in order to connect a Namecheap domain to Leadpages.

Inside Namecheap, click "Domain List," then Manage.
Then click "Advanced DNS" and Add New Record.
If you'd like to connect to your root domain, skip ahead to step 4. Select CNAME Record and edit the field to read Host: www and Value: custom-proxy.leadpages.net (If you already have a CNAME record with the name www, but would like to use it with Leadpages, delete or replace it with this one.)
If you'd only like to connect a subdomain, skip to step 5 below. Select A Record and edit the field to read Host: @ and Value: 35.202.21.90. (If you already have an A record with @ as the host, but would like to use it with Leadpages, delete or replace it with this one.)
Click the green checkmark to Save Changes.
It may take up to 24 hours for the domain to be connected within Leadpages, however, once connected your domain will be listed under Domains in your account settings within Leadpages as Connected and Secure.

Helpful domain provider links

To get you started, we've linked within Leadpages, as well as below, to some helpful tools from popular domain providers on how to add a CNAME within those services.

Disconnect your domain

If you'd like to disconnect your domain from Leadpages, first remove the domain from Domains under the profile icon in your Leadpages account by clicking on the trash icon next to the domain name.

Once you've removed that domain from your Leadpages account, you'll want to edit your DNS records within your domain (or hosting) provider. The new DNS records you enter there will depend on what you'd like to publish at your domain and what service you're trying to connect to. Your provider's support team will be able to assist you in creating new DNS records to point where you'd like them to go.

A Leadpages 404 page will show at that domain until you have edited your DNS records to point elsewhere. Any assets published to that domain in Leadpages will be unpublished and placed in draft mode.

Frequently asked questions

How is domain security handled?

We support https:// and SSL protocols by default for all pages hosted on our servers. In fact, you don’t need to purchase your own SSL certificate. Learn more about security ↗

We’re not able to automatically secure pages hosted on your own server (such as through your WordPress site or our HTML download option).

My domain is on Cloudflare and when setting up my CNAME, I'm getting an error. Now what?

To connect a Cloudflare domain to your Leadpages account, make sure the SSL options on your domain are set to Full SSL or Full SSL (Strict). Here's a resource from Cloudflare on their SSL settings.

Need more help?

You can always get in touch with our support team—just click Support in your Leadpages navigation menu, or submit a ticket ↗