Introduction
Setting up your domain in Cloudflare is a great way to increase security and privacy, but it can be confusing if you don’t know what you’re doing. In this article, I’ll walk through everything that you need to know about setting up your domain with Cloudflare.
Cloudflare is a content delivery network (CDN) that provides DNS, security, and WAF services. It’s also a web application firewall (WAF) provider.
If you aren’t familiar with what these mean, they’re basically ways of making sure your website doesn’t get hacked or DDOSed by bad guys trying to break in.
What is Cloudflare
Cloudflare is a DNS service, CDN, and firewall that provides security to your website.
What does it do?
- DNS: It provides the ability to make changes to your domain name server (DNS) without having to go through your hosting provider or registrar. For example, if you want the www version of your site instead of just one specific subdomain like mysite.com/blog/post-1/. You can do this with Cloudflare!
- CDN (Content Delivery Network): This is where all cached images are stored so they don’t slow down traffic as much when people visit websites with lots of images on them. It also helps speed up loading times by caching multiple files together instead of downloading each file separately which would take longer time due to lack of bandwidth available at any given moment in time.”
Benefits of Cloudflare
Cloudflare is a content delivery network that caches your website and makes it faster.
- It protects you from DDoS attacks,
- helps you stay compliant with the GDPR, and
- is free for most users.
Things you must know about Cloudflare
In order to use Cloudflare, you will need to sign up for a Cloudflare account. If you don’t have one yet, start by visiting the website and clicking on “Sign Up.”
Your domain is important because it’s what people will type in when they visit your website (or any other site). This means that every time someone visits your site, their browser needs to send some information about where they’re going (i.e., what IP address) so it can know where the request should be sent next. This process is called DNS resolution and happens through ICANN’s DNS root servers—the authoritative source of information about which names are associated with which IP addresses—and this includes both public and private domains like yours!
Preparation
To set up your Cloudflare account and DNS records, you’ll need to create a new project in the dashboard. You can also create SSL certificates if you want to secure your site with HTTPS.
Once that’s done, go back to the domain settings page and select “Add this domain.” You’ll be prompted to enter some basic information about the domain:
- Hostname – The name of your website (e.g., www or example123). This is what people will type into their browser’s address bar when they visit it on their computer or mobile device. Make sure that this matches what Google considers “canonical,” which means having only one version per URL (e.g., www vs example123). It’s very important that every time someone types in one URL from search results like Google Maps or Yahoo! Weather, it doesn’t match up with other results so there isn’t confusion about where the best place for information about weather conditions around town (iCWS)
Step 1: Add your domain
- Add your domain to Cloudflare.
- Go to Cloudflare.com and click on the “add domain” button in the upper right corner of the page.
- Enter your domain name (or subdomain) and click “Add Site.”
The next step is to go to the Overview tab and enable DNS for that particular site, so that it can be found by visitors searching for your site on Google or Bing, among other search engines:
Step 2: Select your Plan:
In this step, you have to select which Plan of Cloudflare you want to go. DNS manager in Cloudflare is totally free so you can select the free plan.
Step 3: Review DNS records:
Now you have to set all DNS records for your domain in Cloudflare set all records according to your new server IP and move to the next step.
Step 4: Change your Nameservers
In this step, Cloudflare will provide you nameserver that you need to add to your domain provider. Copy these name servers and add to the domain provider.
Change your DNS nameservers and wait for the magic to happen
Now that you’ve set up your Cloudflare account, it’s time to make sure everything is working as intended. To do this, add the following lines of code in your DNS zone file:
- Set the NS records for domain.com (or any other domain) to point at cloudflare.com
- Wait for those changes to propagate
Enable Cloudflare features as needed
If you have not already, visit the Cloudflare dashboard and enable any features that are required. You can also do this in the Cloudflare app, API, or Web UI.
A secure domain is one that is set up with proper HTTPS and DNSSEC.
The first step to setting up a secure domain is to purchase one from Cloudflare. Once you’ve bought the domain, it will be automatically set up for HTTPS and DNSSEC (more on those below).
Next, you’ll need to create an origin server certificate for your new site. This can be done by following these steps:
- Log into your Cloudflare dashboard and click on “Actions” at the top right corner of your screen;
- Select “Certificates”; Select “Add New Certificate” from this drop-down menu;
- Fill out all of the required fields such as Name and Subject Alternative Name (SAN) names/addresses/etc., then select Continue at the bottom left corner of the screen; Click Next when done filling out information fields
Conclusion
Cloudflare is a great tool to help you keep your site secure. It’s easy to set up and use, so you can get started right away. The free plan includes some basic features that are enough for most websites, like automatic security updates and website monitoring. And if you’re interested in having more advanced protection options or customizing the look of your site, they offer premium plans at reasonable prices (starting at $1 per month).
