4a. How to set up custom domains? Instructions for subdomains

You have decided to set up localized subdomains for your existing domain. 

Please follow all instructions listed below in one go and notify your Glopal Account Manager once your're done.

1 - Add a TXT record

Before Glopal is able to serve localized versions of your store on a given domain, we need to prove that you (the domain owner) have authorized us to do so. This is also a must-have to run Google Shopping campaigns on the chosen domain.

This is done by adding a specific TXT record to your domain's DNS configuration. You will receive a personalized TXT record from your Glopal Account Manager and it will look like this:

google-site-verification=UNIQUE-ID-EXAMPLE

You need to log in to your DNS configuration panel and simply add a new TXT record at the root level of your domain. It may look like this:

The @ symbol is simply a placeholder that translates to "current domain at root level" ("bare" form, so without www or any other subdomains.) 

TTL (Time To Live) is a configuration setting that tells other DNS servers for how long they should cache this value. It is recommended to set it to 1 hour (3600 seconds). Do not set it to a larger value - if you make a mistake it will be hard to get the corrected value propagated in the DNS system.

Please note that you may already have some existing TXT records - do not remove them! Simply add a new record as listed above and leave everything else as-is. Some providers will allow you to add multiple TXT records, while others would expect only one TXT record with all values added to this one record, as multiple lines.

2 - Add CNAME record(s) to redirect the subdomains to our servers

Once we have the permission to use your domain, it's time to point the subdomains to our servers so that we can serve localized versions of your store.

To achieve this, you need to configure an alias for your subdomains using a CNAME record.

a) wildcard record - RECOMMENDED

The easiest thing to do is to setup a wildcard record (*.example.com), this way all of the subdomains will be redirected.

In some DNS panels (e.g. BigCommerce) you have to use the full form in the "Host" field (*.example.com instead of just *).

A wildcard record is always overridden by any explicitly configured subdomain, so your existing, already configured subdomains (like www.example.com) will still work.

NOTE 1: Please verify that you don’t have existing CNAME, A or AAAA records for subdomains you want to launch with Glopal. If this is the case, please make sure to remove the previous records and add the new CNAME records for Glopal instead. Otherwise, adding a wildcard record will have no effect and visitors will go to the previous destination.

NOTE 2: Most providers only allow one wildcard record per domain. However, it may happen that 2 wildcard records are configured on a given domain. In such a situation, some conflicts may appear and only your IT team can decide how to best solve this issue. 

b) per-country record

If you don't want to use a wildcard record, you still have the option to list all of the subdomains manually, but this will require you to add over 100 CNAME records to cover all countries, so it's not recommended. There is no difference for Glopal, however, so the choice is always yours. In such case, the configuration should look like that:

In some DNS panels (e.g. BigCommerce) you have to use the full form in the "Host" field (de.example.com instead of just de).

Per-country configuration is also the only option in rare cases when your provider does not support wildcard records.

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NOTE 1: Please verify that you don’t have existing CNAME, A or AAAA records for subdomains you want to launch with Glopal. If this is the case, please make sure to remove the previous records and add the new CNAME records for Glopal instead. Otherwise, adding a wildcard record will have no effect and visitors will go to the previous destination.

NOTE 2: If you are using some other subdomains already and you want to keep them, you should simply NOT remove the corresponding CNAME records.  For example, you may already have a record like this:

This means that www.example.comis an alias to example.com(@ means "root level domain"). You want to keep it to make sure the www URL still works.

3 - Add a CNAME record to set up domain-validated SSL certificate

All localized sites on custom domains will also benefit from a domain-validated SSL certificate. To set this up, you will need to configure another CNAME record. Your Glopal account manager will provide you with the CNAME record to configure.

In such case, the configuration should look like that

4 - Let us know

Once done, notify your Glopal Account Manager.  It can take up to 24-48 hours for the DNS changes to fully propagate worldwide, but usually it's much quicker. Once we verify the DNS configuration is correct, we will finalize the setup and make your custom URLs live. Congratulations!