Your 4ormat site can be connected to your own custom domain by way of modifying DNS settings. This is done by using a "Canonical Name" (or CNAME) record on the www alias of your domain with the value “4ormat.com.” A CNAME record specifies that your domain (ex. www.example.com) is an alias to 4ormat.com. In other words, it points your domain to our server, where your 4ormat site is hosted. Using a CNAME record on your domain will load your 4ormat site on your domain without redirecting in the browser.

To ensure visitors to either http://example.com or http://www.example.com see your 4ormat site properly, you’ll also need to create a 301 permanent redirect of the http (or “naked”) domain to the www subdomain. Once you’ve done this, also ensure that you’ve input your domain name in the appropriate field of your 4ormat Settings page - this is how our server knows to show your site on your domain.

The technical nature of this kind of domain connection may seem unimportant - many users simply redirect their domain name to their subdomain.4ormat.com address. Others use URL masking. There are two main reasons why it is important to use the correct method for domain connection: mobile devices and search engines.

If you’re using a masked domain redirect to show your 4ormat site, your site is not truly being served by your domain. Instead, your registrar creates an HTML webpage on their servers, with an iFrame displaying the content of your 4ormat site within it.

iFrames are not supported properly by most mobile browsers, which means that your 4ormat site will be displayed with incorrect spacing, formatting, and style information. On the whole, users of your site on mobile devices will see a broken site that looks nothing like you intended.

Where search engines are concerned, using an incorrect connection method will result in your content being penalized in search rankings. This is due to search engine crawlers will treat your 4ormat subdomain and your custom domain as two different websites with duplicate content. This can negatively affect the ranking of your website on search engine results.

In summary, to properly connect to 4ormat you want to:

• Create a CNAME record on the www alias, giving it the value “4ormat.com.”
• Forward your “naked” domain (http://example.com) to your www subdomain (http://www.example.com) via a 301 Permanent Redirect.
• Be sure that you’ve put your domain name in the “connected domain” field of your 4ormat Settings page. This is how our server knows where to point requests for your domain.

You want to avoid:

• Directly redirecting yourdomain.com to yoursubdomain.4ormat.com
• Using a CNAME record on the naked domain (ie. http://example.com) - this will cause any associated email addresses on your domain to not work.
• Using “stealth” or “masked” redirection. This will cause issues on mobile devices as well as harm your rankings on search engines.

If you’re having trouble with getting your DNS settings properly configured, we’re here to help: just fill out this form and we’ll give you a hand.

For specific instructions on how to connect your domain if you're using Namecheap as your registrar (and a general idea for other registrars) see this Knowledge Base Article.