Why we do not support root domains, and what to do instead

Every hosting product has a moment where it has to admit something. Ours is this: you can point www.example.com at staticsites.eu, and you cannot point bare example.com at it.

We would rather say that on the pricing page than have you find out after signing up. Here is why it is true, and what to do about it.

The limitation is in DNS, not in us

A CNAME record says “this name is an alias for that other name”. It is how you point a hostname at a service whose address you do not control and should not have to track.

The DNS specification does not allow a CNAME at the root of a domain. Not “discourages”: does not allow. The root of a zone already carries its SOA and NS records, and a CNAME cannot coexist with other records at the same name. That rule is from 1987 and it has not moved.

So when a hosting provider tells you to point example.com straight at them, one of two things is happening. Either your DNS provider supports a proprietary extension, usually called ALIAS or CNAME flattening, which resolves the target and answers with an A record instead. Or you have been given a bare IP address to hard-code, which works right up until the provider changes it.

Why we did not build around it

We could have supported the providers that have flattening and failed on the ones that do not. That produces the worst kind of feature: one that works for some of your customers, fails for others, and gives neither group a clear reason why.

We could also have handed out an IP address. Then your site depends on an address staying where it is, forever, and one day it does not, and the failure lands on you rather than on us.

Both options trade an honest limitation for a dishonest one. We would rather write this page.

What to do instead, in about a minute

1. Point www.example.com at us with a CNAME. We show you the exact record.
2. At your registrar, redirect bare example.com to www.example.com.

Almost every registrar offers that second step. It is usually called domain forwarding, web forwarding or a redirect, and it lives in the same screen as your DNS records. It is a setting, not a project.

Visitors typing example.com land on your site. Search engines follow the redirect and index the www version. Your certificate is issued and renewed for the hostname that actually serves the site.

The part that is genuinely ours

Once the record is in place, everything after it is our problem. We watch DNS until the record is visible, issue the certificate, renew it, and tell you which stage you are at in plain words rather than leaving you refreshing a page. You will never get an email about a certificate expiring.

One record, from you, once. That is the whole ask.