Minimize downtime
When you add your domain to Cloudflare, it may experience a brief period of downtime due to certificate issuance, misconfigured Cloudflare settings, or limitations at your origin server.
Step 1 — Update and review DNS records
Before activating your domain on Cloudflare (exact steps depend on your DNS setup), review the DNS records in your Cloudflare account.
Start with unproxied records
With a new domain, make sure all your DNS records have a proxy status of DNS-only.
This setting prevents Cloudflare from proxying your traffic before you have an active edge certificate or before you have allowed Cloudflare IP addresses.
Confirm record accuracy
Take extra time to confirm the accuracy of your DNS records before activating your domain, paying special attention to:
- Root domain records (
example.com) - Subdomain records (
www.example.comorblog.example.com) - Email records
If you add DNS records to your authoritative DNS provider between onboarding your domain and activating your domain, you may need to also add these records within Cloudflare.
Step 2 — Activate your domain
Finish the DNS setup for your domain, moving the domain status to Active:
- Full setups: Update the authoritative nameservers at your registrar and wait for that change to be authenticated.
- Partial setups: Add the verification TXT record to your authoritative DNS and wait for that change to be authenticated.
Step 3 — Verify SSL/TLS edge certificates
Before proxying your traffic through Cloudflare, verify that Cloudflare has an active Edge Certificate for your domain.
For more details about timing and certificate recommendations, refer to Certificate issuance.
Step 4 — Test configuration (optional)
You may want to test your configuration using your local machine or proxying traffic from a development domain or subdomain.
If you experience issues, you should make sure that you have allowed Cloudflare IP addresses at your origin server.
Step 5 — Update proxy status
Once you have verified that your SSL/TLS edge certificate is active and you have allowed Cloudflare IP addresses, change the proxy status of appropriate DNS records to Proxied.