4b. How to set up custom domains? Instructions for regular domains

You have decided to buy a new domain for each localized URL of your store. 

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

NOTE: This guide explains how to configure localized versions of your store for top-level domains. For example you want to have www.example.de for German version, www.example.fr for French version, etc.

If you prefer, you can always buy a single "international" domain (which can be anything you like, e.g. example-international-store.com,example.global, etc). We are able to then configure all localized subdomains under this single "international" domain (e.g. de.example.global,fr.example.global, etc).

If this is what you would actually like more, please refer to the 4a. How to set up custom domains? Instructions for subdomains article and also complete all the steps.

Otherwise, please continue with this guide and follow the steps below to configure the custom domains at top level.

1 - Add 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 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.

Repeat this step for all of the domains you want to configure. The TXT record will be different for each domain!

2 - Configure records to redirect the domain to our servers

Once we have the permission to use your domain, it's time to point it to our servers so that we can serve a localized version of your store. You will only need to add DNS records that will be given to you by your Glopal account manager.

a) If you want to configure localized domains like www.example.fr ,

www.example.de...

The configuration could look like this:

b) If you want to configure localized domains like example.fr ,

example.de...

Start with removing all of the existing A and AAAA records. Beware that this means the domain will no longer serve any content that it currently does, so make sure you are doing this for newly bought domains that you want to use for localized versions of your store only.

Keep the other existing DNS records (CNAME,TXT, MX, etc...)

The configuration could look like this: 

NOTE: You can add multiple A and AAAA records for any given domain.

Please repeat this step for all of the domains you would like to set up. 

3 - 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!