Pointing SquareOnline site to Gandi domain

[agmo]

I’m trying to point my SquareOnline site to a domain hosted at Gandi.net. 

When updating my DNS records, the @ CNAME works fine, but I get an error when I try to add the www CNAME. Apparently, Gandi does not allow IP addresses as the www hostname. Is there any way around this?

[Donnie-M]

@agmo You should only need to update a couple of things to make this work.  Most of all the registrars are the same as far as I know but here is the support article:

https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6916-connect-your-domain-with-square-online-store 

The @ & the www should both allow the ip address as those just line up the site with the domain name servers.  I haven't used Gandi, but I would question any host that makes it hard to link to another web developer (as this is sometimes designed to drive traffic to their own services).  I use godaddy for our sites, but I would have no problem transferring the domain to square as the registrar.  It makes management easy.

Donnie-M

[agmo]

Are you sure this isn’t Square trying to force people to use their services? That push is all over these forums, and every other instance I’ve needed to update my DNS records the www CNAME is an actual domain (not an IP address).

[Donnie-M]

@agmo On the first part, I can assure you that absolutely is not the case for several reasons.  #1 I personally use godaddy as my registrar for my domain names, because I used them before I used square for my sites.  #2, square has a complete api that any web developer can integrate into any site or server including a wordpress site or woocommerce.  Square makes it easily available to use the payment api in many ways to integrate and even has 3rd party developers like goparrot as partners.

I re-read your question and needed to ask, are you just trying to use the web domain to go to your square online site?  If you are, it does require a paid plan to connect a domain.  There is a professional plan for 12$ per month billed annually or just 6$ per month if you want to connect a domain name.

As to the DNS record, I think I understand better what you are doing now.  The CNAME is different, the only 2 records you are updating are the "A" record for @ and the "A" record for www.  These should just be telling the name servers where to resolve your actual web site. The most common CNAME host is www, with the @ symbol entered for the Points to field. This will make www.coolexample.com load to the same webpage as the root domain, coolexample.com.

I have not used a cname record to point one subdomain to another.  For all intents and purposes, you should not need a cname record to use a square online store.

The last point would be, if you do not want to pay to have a connected domain with the online store and are using something like yourstorename.square.site, you could just set up your domain to redirect to the square.site.  I don't recommend this, as redirects are sometimes flagged and don't behave well with search engines.

I hope this gets you in the right direction.  Square does supply a completely free to operate e-commerce tier of online store, but to directly connect a domain name like www.orderupcafe.com you do have to pay them or you are stuck with a redirect.  You are always welcome to use your own web developer and the api is free to use.

Donnie-M

[agmo]

Thanks, @Donnie-M. I have a paid account with square, and I’m just trying to get my square store pointing to my domain.

https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6916-connect-your-domain-with-square-online-store

Following those instructions, I get an error because the A www has an IP address listed as “points to”. 

[Donnie-M]

@agmo 

https://docs.gandi.net/en/domain_names/common_operations/dns_records.html#nameservers-and-dns-record... 

I checked their documentation, and it looks like it is the same as most all other registrars.  If you see a cname record or anything other than "A" record I would delete it.  MX records are for e-mail services if you are going to use branded email.

This document also goes through the ip address: https://docs.gandi.net/en/domain_names/faq/record_types/a_record.html#a-records 

The www record should be your website name not an ip address.  So just put your actual web domain in there.

I know we can get this fixed, it if you want to send me a private message, I'll be glad to dig a little more for you.  I am just a business owner like yourself and want to help you make money.

Donnie-M

[Ellie_]

Hi there @agmo, 

Thank you for reaching out about this. Typically when domain hosts require a CNAME, they are formatted as followed : 

TYPE : CNAME

HOST : www

POINTS TO : (your domain), not the IP address. The IP address will only work for A records. 

[agmo]

Then this documentation is wrong, as it lists an IP address for the www points to:

https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6916-connect-your-domain-with-square-online-store