(Tip) Subdomain only hosting, with Webflow

Ok I was trying to find the answer to this via the forum and didn’t find anything conclusive.

So After trying out a few things I have managed to figure it out, so I though I’d post this tip for others.

If you want to only host a subdomain subdomain.domain.com and leave the main domain domain.com with your current host this is how to do it.

So for instance, if you want to have dev.domain.com to point to your Webflow project and not mess with the original website just before putting your new site live.

I setup a dev. subdomain for this…

Go to your domain DNS setting and add the following records…

dev —> CNAME —> proxy.webflow.com
dev —> A —> 104.156.81.229
dev —> A —> 23.235.33.229

Image below of my client’s domain panel…

Doing this will leave your domain at the current host but will make dev.domain.com point to Webflow.

Then within your Webflow hosting panel, just add the dev.domain.com as your Custom Domain, see below…

Hope that helps. Please add anything I’ve missed below…

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I think you do not need a CNAME record, any A record with the same name will override it.

I did try that but somehow it didn’t work, hence leaving the CNAME in place.

Great piece of information @Kia!

Do you think it can be implemented with SSL turned on?

My domain provider doesn’t allow adding a CNAME record with the same name of an A record.

And this is what I’m getting from Webflow:

Any other workaround for subdomains someone will like to share?

you don’t need A-Records. Just the CNAME :slight_smile:

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who is your domain registrar?

Hi Nelson, thank you for jumping in.

Do you mean removing the A records and just create a CNAME record pointing to proxy-ssl.webflow.io?

Here is a screenshot from my DNS configuration.
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I’m using gandi.net as my domain registrar.

I tried removing the A records and just create a CNAME record pointing to proxy-ssl.webflow.com and still doesn’t work.

landing 10800 IN CNAME proxy-ssl.webflow.com. not working either.

Can I have a subdomain even if I am hosting with Webflow?
I would like to share live demo links to other sites I have built using subdomains.

Is this the case? My preference is to keep the A records on a different host and server, and simply point the CNAME to WebFlow’s proxy server. Based on my knowledge and experience with domains and DNS, that should be totally doable, right?

yes. that is doable :slight_smile:

When you add your custom domain name to your hosting settings, make sure to put the full domain name with your subdomain in there.

Great.

So the way it would be set up in my DNS host is like this:

www.domain.com - CNAME - proxy-ssl.webflow.com

Right? And WebFlow’s SSL is only for www.domain.com.

And the A records for domain.com can stay on my current server, so long as I have a redirect from domain.com to www.domain.com?

That’s how I understand it can work. That makes subdomains much easier to manage.

Let me know if all that is OK because we’re about to move a WebFlow project from a developer to the client using WebFlow.

Thanks…

Would I have to pay individual hosting for each subdomain?

thank you Sir :slight_smile:

Everything worked like a charm once you put in the sub-Domain.your-Domain.com into the Custom Domain area!