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Connecting a custom domain gives your WordPress site a real, branded web address instead of a placeholder URL. Whether you use WP Stratos’s built-in DNS management or keep DNS with your existing registrar, this page walks through every step, from adding the domain in the Cloud Panel to confirming SSL is live.
Before you begin, make sure you have a domain name registered with any domain registrar (such as GoDaddy, Namecheap, or Cloudflare Registrar) and at least one WP Stratos site already created in your Cloud Panel.
1

Log in to the Cloud Panel

Go to cloud.wpstratos.com and sign in with your WP Stratos credentials.
2

Open Change Domain

From your dashboard, open the site you want to connect a domain to, then click Change Domain under your instance’s name. This opens the Set Your Domain window.
3

Enter your domain and choose how to map it

Type in your domain (for example, yourdomain.com) and click Change if you need to correct it. Below that, you’ll see two sections: Set DNS Records and Set Nameservers. Pick whichever matches how you want to manage this domain going forward.
Keep DNS management wherever it already lives (your registrar, Cloudflare, anywhere) and just point this one domain at WP Stratos. No nameserver change required.
  1. Log in to your domain provider’s panel.
  2. Set these DNS records exactly as shown in your Cloud Panel modal, using your domain in place of yourdomain.com:
That’s two A records on the root domain and one CNAME for www pointing back at the root. The exact IP addresses are generated for your specific domain and shown right there in the modal, so copy them directly rather than reusing values from an old setup or another site.
  1. Wait anywhere from 2 minutes to a few hours for the records to propagate.
4

Wait for DNS propagation

After updating records or nameservers, allow time for the change to spread across the internet. Most of the time this takes somewhere between 2 minutes and a few hours, though it can occasionally stretch to 48 hours depending on your previous TTL settings.
5

Confirm SSL is active

Once your domain resolves correctly, WP Stratos automatically provisions a free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate for your site. In the Cloud Panel, check the domain’s SSL status, a green indicator confirms your certificate is active and HTTPS is enabled.
DNS propagation time varies depending on your previous TTL settings and your visitors’ DNS resolvers. You can use a tool like whatsmydns.net to check propagation status from multiple locations worldwide.

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Not Sure Who Your Registrar Is?

Plenty of people bought a domain years ago and forgot where. If that’s you, the registrar-specific steps below won’t do much good until you know which one to follow. Good news, figuring it out takes about ten seconds.
Run your domain through ICANN Lookup and check the Registrar field in the results. That’s who you need to log in to below. WHOIS privacy services mask your personal contact details, not this field, so it shows up even when everything else in the report is hidden.
If ICANN Lookup comes back empty, or the domain shows a status like “pending delete” or doesn’t resolve at all, search your email inbox for “domain” or “renewal.” Whoever sent that first purchase receipt is your registrar, and their name is usually right there in the sender address.

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Registrar-Specific Instructions

Where you click “DNS” or “Nameservers,” and what it’s called once you get there, changes by registrar. Here’s a map for the six you’ll run into most.
Sign in and open My Products. Click the domain, then the three-dot menu next to it, then Manage DNS.For DNS records, add the two A records and the www CNAME under the Records section. GoDaddy shows your existing records first, so delete any old A record pointing at @ before adding the new ones. Otherwise both resolve and only one wins.For nameservers, scroll to Nameservers, click Change, select Enter my own nameservers (advanced), and paste in the pair from your Cloud Panel.
Go to Domain List, find the domain, and click Manage.For DNS records, open the Advanced DNS tab and use Add New Record for each row. Namecheap defaults new domains to “Namecheap BasicDNS,” which is fine, you’re just adding records on top of it.For nameservers, stay on the main Domain tab, find Nameservers, switch the dropdown to Custom DNS, and enter both values.
Open the domain in your Cloudflare dashboard and click the DNS tab.Add the A and CNAME records there. Cloudflare Registrar domains already run on Cloudflare nameservers, so there’s no separate nameserver step, you’re managing DNS directly. Important: leave the proxy status (the orange cloud icon) off for these records and keep it set to DNS only. WP Stratos runs its own Edge Cache in front of your site, and stacking Cloudflare’s proxy on top of that causes cache conflicts rather than extra protection. See DNS Configuration for the full explanation.
Log in, go to Domains, select the domain, and open the DNS Settings tab.For DNS records, scroll to Custom Records and add each row there.For nameservers, look for Nameservers on the same page, choose Use custom nameservers, and replace whatever’s listed with the pair from your Cloud Panel.
From the Bluehost dashboard, go to Domains, select the domain, and open the DNS tab, sometimes labeled Zone Editor.Records and nameservers live on the same screen here. Add the A and CNAME records under Zone Editor, or scroll down to Name Servers if you’re switching those instead.
Go to Domains, click the domain, and open DNS / Nameservers from the left menu.The DNS records table and the nameserver switch both sit on this page, just under different tabs. Add rows under DNS Records, or flip to Nameservers and choose Change nameservers if that’s the route you’re taking.
Not seeing your registrar here? The pattern holds everywhere: find DNS or Nameservers in your domain’s settings, then use the values from the Set Your Domain window above. For a slower, more detailed walkthrough of the nameserver path specifically, see Nameserver Setup.

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Setting or Changing Your Main Domain

If you’ve added more than one domain to a site, one of them is designated the main domain, marked with a filled star icon in your domain list. Any addon domain can be promoted to main: click the empty star next to it, confirm the change, and WP Stratos updates the hosting account to reflect the new main domain automatically. This is worth knowing if you rebrand a client site down the road and need the new domain to take over as primary without rebuilding the connection from scratch.
If you’re managing DNS through WP Stratos and see a proxy toggle next to a record, leave it off unless you have a specific reason to enable it. WP Stratos Edge Cache already handles caching and traffic protection at the platform level, and running both at once tends to cause more caching problems than it solves. See DNS Configuration for the full explanation.

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Next Steps

DNS Configuration

Add and manage A, CNAME, MX, TXT, and other DNS records directly in the Cloud Panel.

Nameserver Setup

Step-by-step instructions for updating nameservers at popular registrars.

SSL Certificates

Learn how automatic SSL provisioning works and how to troubleshoot certificate issues.
Last modified on August 24, 2026