Put your ChurchDesk website online

Things you need to get started

You need to know your domain(s)
Username/email and password for the account at your domain host
This guide

Please note that ChurchDesk is not your domain host. You can check who your domain host (the company where you bought your churches domain name/URL) is by going to this site. Enter your churches domain name/URL and search. The information you need ("Hostname") is in the section "Name servers".

Step 1 - Update your domain settings at your domain host

When you are ready to go online with your ChurchDesk website, there are a few DNS settings that need to be made on your domain name.

These DNS settings need to be changed in the account you have at your domain host's:

You either have to log into your domain host account and make the changes to the settings yourself, or you can send this guide to your domain host's support and they will do it for you. If you have more than one domain showing your ChurchDesk website, you need to change the A-Records at the respective domain host(s) for all of the domains.

These two DNS records need to be set up like this (IPv4 only):

An A-Record where [yourdomain.com] points to 185.58.213.233
An A-Record where [www.yourdomain.com] points to 185.58.213.233

Remember to remove the A-Records that are pointing to the old IP address!

Step 2 - Going live: Updating your domains in ChurchDesk

Go to the website module in ChurchDesk. Make sure you are in the right tab - "Website and Landing Page".



On the website you want to set live, click on "Actions". Then, click on "Domains".



A window for domain settings will open to the right of the screen. To add a new domain, click on "Add new domain".


A new window will open in the middle of your screen.


This is where you add your domain name (your churches URL). Remember to add it without the "www." in front - the system adds this automatically.

When you have entered the domain name, click on "OK".


The domain will then be shown in the domain overview on the right.


If your overview now looks something like this, you are done and your website is live.

Resolving errors

If you get an error, it does not necessarily mean that you did something wrong.



Wait 1 hour and then click on "Check Status" to establish the connection to your domain host.



For some domain hosts, this process can take up to 24 hours. This depends on how fast your domain host updates and is not something ChurchDesk can influence in any way. You can check periodically by re-clicking the "Check Status" button until the connection is established. If there is no change after 24 hours, please contact ChurchDesk support.

If you have more than one domain

If you have more than one domain showing your ChurchDesk website, you need to change the A-Records at the respective domain host(s) for all of the domains. You will then need to go into your ChurchDesk and add all the domains as described above.

If you want all our domains to redirect to one specific domain

You can set one of your domains as the primary domain by clicking "Actions" - "Domains", then "Make primary" on the domain you want all your other domains to redirect to.



Confirm your choice by clicking on "OK" in the pop up window.

Common mistakes

Please make sure that the domains only have A-records specified and not AAAA-records. We do not support IPv6.

Updated on: 14/09/2023