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How to Point Your Domain to/On Cloudflare

Pointing your domain to Cloudflare is a great way to improve the security, performance, and reliability of your website. Cloudflare offers a global content delivery network (CDN), DDoS protection, web application firewall, and more to keep your site safe.

In this comprehensive guide, I’ll explain step-by-step how to point your domain to Cloudflare using their authoritative nameservers. We’ll also cover alternative setup options like CNAME records.

Benefits of Using Cloudflare

Here are some of the main benefits of pointing your domain to Cloudflare:

  • Enhanced Security – Cloudflare provides protection against DDoS attacks, cross-site scripting, SQL injections, and more. Their web application firewall monitors traffic for threats.
  • Faster Site Speed – The Cloudflare CDN stores cached versions of your site globally, meaning visitors get lower latency and faster load times.
  • Higher Uptime – If your origin server goes down, Cloudflare can continue to serve your site from cache to prevent downtime.
  • SEO Improvements – Cloudflare offers SEO-friendly configurations out of the box, like enabling HTTPS and HTTP/2 by default.

Prerequisites

Before pointing your domain to Cloudflare, make sure:

  • You own the domain you want to point and have access to update the nameservers
  • Existing DNS records for the domain are documented
  • SSL certificate is disabled or can be safely replaced

Also, back up your site and databases in case any issues occur during the transition.

Option 1: Change Nameservers to Cloudflare

The fastest way to point your domain is changing your authoritative nameservers to Cloudflare’s:

Step 1: Add Site in Cloudflare Dashboard

First, you’ll need to add your site to your Cloudflare account:

  1. Log in to the Cloudflare dashboard
  2. Click “Add site”
  3. Enter your root domain name (example.com)
  4. Select a plan and click continue

This will scan and import DNS records, which you can review and customize later.

Step 2: Get Cloudflare Nameservers

Next, collect the two Cloudflare nameservers assigned to your domain.

You can get them by going to the “Overview” tab in the Cloudflare dashboard and looking for the “Nameservers” section:

tony.ns.cloudflare.com
hannah.ns.cloudflare.com

Step 3: Change Nameservers at Registrar

Now you need to change your domain’s nameservers to Cloudflare’s at your domain name registrar’s website (where you purchased your domain).

The controls for updating nameservers vary by registrar, but there will be an option to:

  1. Customize/manage domain or change nameservers
  2. Enter the two Cloudflare nameservers and save changes

Once saved, your domain will point to Cloudflare within 24-48 hours after the changes propagate fully.

Option 2: Point DNS Using CNAME

If you can’t switch your nameservers, use a CNAME record instead. This points a subdomain like www or domain.com to Cloudflare nameservers.

Step 1: Add CNAME Record

Add a CNAME record in your current DNS control panel for www or the root domain.

Set the Host/Name field to the subdomain you want to point to Cloudflare. Then set the Points to/Value field to your full domain name:

Host: www
Points to: example.com

Step 2: Finish Cloudflare Setup

Head back to Cloudflare and finish setting up the domain. When scanning DNS records, it will detect the CNAME you just created.

Make sure SSL/TLS encryption is enabled under Crypto for security.

Checking Propagation Status

It can take up to 48 hours for DNS changes to fully propagate globally. You can check if your domain is pointing to Cloudflare correctly in a few ways:

  • Use a DNS propagation checker tool
  • Ping your domain and confirm Cloudflare IP address is returning
  • Check HTTPS status shows active in the Cloudflare dashboard

For optimal performance and security, enable the Cloudflare proxy/CDN after confirming propagation.

Wrapping Up

Pointing your domain to Cloudflare provides many performance and security benefits for your site. You can use nameserver or CNAME record methods to get Cloudflare protecting your domain.

Monitor propagation status closely when transitioning DNS to avoid any downtime. Reach out to Cloudflare support if you have any issues getting your custom domain configured.

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