Connecting your own domain to a Framer site

Every Framer site gets a free address ending in framer.website. It works, but it isn’t yours, and visitors notice. Connecting your own domain takes about twenty minutes of actual work plus some waiting, and nothing about it is difficult once you know which settings belong where.

This guide assumes you already own a domain, for example at Namecheap, GoDaddy, IONOS or Squarespace, and that your site is ready in Framer.

What you need before you start

• A paid Framer site plan*. Custom domains are not available on the free plan. You buy the plan for the specific site in Framer, and Framer bills you directly.

• A login for your domain registrar. That is the company where you bought the domain, not necessarily where your email lives. If you don’t know who that is, a lookup tool for your domain’s registration record will tell you.

• Twenty quiet minutes. Mistakes here usually come from rushing through two browser tabs at once.

What it costs

Two separate bills, both small. The domain itself is paid yearly to your registrar, usually somewhere between ten and twenty dollars for a .org or .com. The Framer site plan is paid to Framer, monthly or yearly. Connecting the two costs nothing extra, and you don’t need any paid add-ons from your registrar such as their own website builder or “premium DNS”.

Step 1: add the domain in Framer

Open your project in Framer, go to Site Settings and choose Domains. Add your domain, for example yourname.org. Framer then shows you the exact DNS records it needs. Keep this screen open, you will copy from it in the next step.

DNS records are entries at your registrar that tell the internet where to send visitors for your domain. Usually Framer asks for two: one for the root domain (yourname.org) and one for the www version (www.yourname.org). Copy the values from Framer rather than from any guide, including this one, because they can change.

Step 2: change the records at your registrar

Log in at your registrar and find the DNS settings for your domain. They are often called DNS Management, Advanced DNS or Zone Editor.

• Create or update the records exactly as Framer shows them: the type, the host and the value.

• For the root domain, the host field is often written as “@”. For the www version, it is “www”.

• Delete old records of the same type and host that point somewhere else, for example to a previous website builder. Two conflicting records for the same address are the most common reason a domain doesn’t connect.

Don’t touch your MX records. They route your email. Changing your website never requires changing them.

Step 3: wait, then check in Framer

Go back to Framer’s Domains screen. Framer checks your records and shows when they are found. Sometimes that takes a few minutes, sometimes several hours. Changes to DNS spread through the internet at different speeds, and up to 48 hours is still normal.

Once Framer confirms the domain, it also sets up the secure connection, the padlock in the browser, on its own. You don’t need to buy or install a certificate.

Step 4: test it like a visitor

• Open yourname.org and www.yourname.org on your phone using mobile data, not your home Wi-Fi. Both should show your site.

• Check that the browser shows the padlock and no security warning.

• Send a test message through every form on the live domain.

• Send yourself an email to your usual address on that domain, to be sure email still arrives.

Root or www: pick a main address

Your site can be reached as yourname.org and as www.yourname.org. Visitors don’t care which one they type, but search engines prefer one main address, with the other one forwarding to it. In most setups Framer handles that forwarding for you once both records are in place. Check in the Domains screen which of the two is marked as the main one, and use that version on business cards, posters and social profiles.

Moving from an old website

If the domain used to show another website, people and search engines still know its old page addresses. Someone may have bookmarked yourname.org/contact-us, while your new page lives at /contact. Without a redirect, they land on an error page.

• Before you switch, make a list of the old site’s most visited pages. Your old builder’s statistics or a quick look at search results for your name will show them.

• In Framer, add a redirect from each old address to its new counterpart. You find redirects in the Site Settings.

• Cancel the old website plan only after the new domain works, not before. Otherwise there is a gap where nothing loads.

Framer creates a sitemap for search engines automatically. If you use Google Search Console, submit it there once the domain is live, so the new pages are picked up faster.

When it doesn’t work

Framer still says the records are missing

Compare each record character by character with what Framer shows. Watch for a trailing dot, a value pasted into the wrong field, or a host written as “yourname.org” where the registrar expected “@”. Then give it another hour.

The old website still appears

An old record is still active somewhere. Look for a second record with the same host, or for a forwarding or parking setting at the registrar that overrides your DNS records. Turn those off.

Only one of the two addresses works

One of the two records is missing or wrong. Usually it is the www record. Add it again exactly as Framer shows it.

Email stopped working

Something other than the website records was changed. Restore the previous MX records. Many registrars keep a history of DNS changes, which makes this a two-minute fix.

After launch

Write down which registrar holds the domain, who has the login and when it renews. Domains expire quietly when the card on file runs out, and a lapsed domain is the most avoidable way to lose a website. Turn on auto-renew if your registrar offers it.

If you would rather not do any of this, every setup package includes connecting your domain. You give us access for an hour, and we hand it back when your site is live.