If you have published your site and configured your DNS settings correctly, but the site is still not live, you may need to check your nameserver settings. For more information on publishing your site and configuring your A and CNAME records, see Go Live, Publish, and Set Up Your Domain.
Nameservers may affect your A and CNAME records when configuring your DNS settings. In order to update your DNS, you need to make updates to the DNS manager where your nameservers are pointed. This is not always the same place where your domain is registered. For example, the domain could be registered at GoDaddy, but the nameserver settings at GoDaddy are pointing to Cloudflare. To update your DNS records, you would need to login to Cloudflare to add your DNS settings, not GoDaddy.
Changing nameserver settings should be done with extreme caution, as this changes all your DNS settings at once. For example, if you have an email service set up at domain.com and you change your nameservers, you need to add DNS settings at the new nameserver for your email (MX records) in addition to adding A records and CNAME records to publish your site.
To find your nameservers:
- Go to https://www.whois.com/whois/.
- Type your domain name or IP address in the search box, and click Search.
- The domain information lists the Domain, Registrar, and Name Servers.
- The Name Server information tells you where you need to go to add the A and CNAME records to point your site without removing any existing records that may affect other domain related applications (such as email, documents, and so on).
For example, the domain in the image below indicates you need to go to Cloudflare to update your nameserver information.
If your domain is with a registrar that doesn’t allow Advanced DNS editing, you may not be able to add and edit A and CNAME records, but may only be able to change name servers. In this case, you can use an Advanced DNS Manager such as Cloudflare. When you add a domain to a Cloudflare account, Cloudflare automatically detects your current DNS records, and provides you with name servers you can point the domain to. You then have access to add the A and CNAME records you need to point the domain to your site.