Custom Domains

Every site and store you publish on SitesPlaced gets a web address the moment you click Publish. This category explains the two kinds of address you can use: the free yourname.sitesplaced.com link that comes with every plan, and a custom domain such as yourbrand.com that you buy from a registrar and connect to your site on a paid plan. It walks you through the setup, the waiting, and the fixes for the handful of things that stop a domain from resolving.

What's covered here

• Your free address — how the yourname part (your slug) is chosen, where to change it for a store and for a website, the rules a slug has to follow, and what happens to old links when you change it.
• Connect your own domain — what you need before you start (a domain you own, a plan that covers this site, a published site), where the Custom domain field lives, and what verified and active means.
• One-click Domain Connect — the automatic route SitesPlaced offers when your DNS provider supports it: you approve a popup and the records are added for you.
• Manual DNS — the copy-and-paste route that works with every registrar: the exact A, CNAME and TXT records, what the Set / Add it / Replace labels mean, and the GoDaddy, Hostinger, Namecheap and Cloudflare gotchas.

How the pieces fit together

Think of it as three layers. Your site lives on SitesPlaced's hosting. Your free yourname.sitesplaced.com address is wired to that hosting automatically, which is why publishing is instant and needs no setup. A custom domain is an address you own somewhere else — at GoDaddy, Hostinger, Namecheap, BigRock, Cloudflare or any other registrar — and connecting it simply means editing that domain's DNS records so they point at SitesPlaced instead of the registrar's parking page. SitesPlaced then checks those records, marks the domain verified, and serves your site with HTTPS on both yourbrand.com and www.yourbrand.com. Your free address keeps working the whole time, so there is never a moment when your store is offline.

Nothing moves: your domain stays registered where you bought it, and your site stays on SitesPlaced. Only the pointer changes. That is also why you can disconnect a domain later, or move it to a different site, without losing either.

The order to do things in

1. 1Build and publish your site first. A custom domain only serves a published site, and the free address is the quickest way to test checkout, WhatsApp buttons and product pages before you spend money on a domain. See Publish and share.
2. 2Pick a good slug now — in Settings → Store details → Store link for a store, or General Settings → Slug in the website builder. It is your address on the free plan and your fallback later.
3. 3Buy a domain from any registrar if you don't own one. Keep the registrar login handy; you'll need it for the DNS step.
4. 4Upgrade to a plan that covers this site: Starter (₹199/month) for any website or store, Growth (₹499/month early-bird for the first 50 stores, ₹999/month after) if you also want the selling features, or the one-time ₹99 Student unlock for student portfolios. Compare them on the pricing page.
5. 5Type the domain into the Custom domain field and click Save. Then either approve the one-click popup, if your provider offers it, or add the records SitesPlaced shows you at your registrar.
6. 6Click Check Verification Now. Once the badge reads verified and active, update your Instagram bio, WhatsApp catalogue links and any printed QR codes to the new address.

Who this is for

If you're happy with yourname.sitesplaced.com, you only need the first article — plenty of sellers run on the free address for months and take orders on it every day. Read the rest when a custom domain starts to matter: you're printing packaging or visiting cards, running ads, want to look established to first-time buyers, or want your brand rather than SitesPlaced to be the first thing people notice in the link. None of it needs technical knowledge. Every record you have to add is shown on screen with a copy button, and SitesPlaced detects which registrar manages your DNS so the instructions match what you see there.