Linking Your Custom Website Domain Name to Your Captivate Site

Each podcast that you create with Captivate has the option of launching a beautiful podcast website alongside it, using Captivate's stunning podcast website platform.

When you create a website for your podcast with Captivate, you have two options when it comes to the domain name that you use.

You can use either:

The built-in Captivate domain name, for example: https://yourpodcast.captivate.fm; or
A custom domain name that you have registered elsewhere, for example: https://www.yourdomainname.com.

Using a Captivate domain name is easy, and the domain name will be formatted in the same way as your RSS feed URL to make it nice and simple.

However, some of our members want to use a custom domain that they have registered with a domain name registrar such as GoDaddy or Namecheap.

This means that you can link a "branded" domain name to your Captivate Site to give your podcast that polished feel.

How to use a custom domain name with your Captivate Site.

To do this:

Log in to your Captivate Dashboard
Click Domain Name from the left-side navigation
Toggle Custom Domain to "On"
Enter the domain name that you wish to use
Save your settings

At this point, Captivate is ready to "accept" your domain name when the domain name is "pointed" to the Captivate servers.

Changing your DNS Records with your domain registrar

The next step is to tell your domain name registrar that you would like to "point" that domain name to Captivate so we can control the URL.

To do this, you will need to make a couple of small changes to your domain name DNS settings.

DNS is the way the internet tells domain names where to look to find the websites that they are associated with, so you need to tell your domain name where to look for your website.

Each domain name registrar is a little different but they all require an IP address.

To find the IP address that you need to point your domain name to:

Log in to your Captivate Dashboard
Click Domain Name from the left-side navigation
Copy or make a note of the IP address that you see next to your domain name.

Now head on over to your domain registrar, so you can make the required changes to your DNS settings.

Each domain registrar has a different way to find your DNS settings, but usually they're under My Account > Domains/Manage Domains > YOUR DOMAIN (this is the domain you want to associate with your Captivate Site). Check with your domain registrar if you're unsure where to find yours.

Once you click on the domain you want to edit, scroll down until you see an option for Managing Your DNS, and click that. That should open your DNS settings for that domain.

Here, you will usually have four options to choose from:

Type - the type of record (so, web host address, email, etc)
Name - the host name, without the domain
Value - where the domain is pointing to
TTL - how long between a domain's cache being cleared

Don't worry, you don't need to know the technical ins and outs of their meaning, this is just to highlight what each record does. 😁

You need to set up two "A Records", one for the '@' host and one for the 'www' host. You will not need to create a CNAME.

To set up these A Records to point to your Captivate Site, follow these simple steps:

Click the little pencil icon to the right hand side of the A in the Type column
Leave the @ icon as it is in the Name column
Paste the IP address you copied from your Captivate dashboard in the Value column, to replace Parked
Change the TTL to 1 hour.
Click on the pencil icon for the CNAME that displays "www" in the Name field, and "@" in the Value field. Delete this CNAME.
Click ADD to create the second A Record
For Type, select A. For Host, type www. For Points To, paste your Captivate IP address. For TTL, leave at 1 hour.
Click Save.

Once done, your new domain records should look similar to this screen.

And that's it - your custom domain is now set up to point to your Captivate Site!

Depending on your domain registrar, It can take anywhere between 24-72 hours for the updates to take effect worldwide, but usually you should be good to go within a few hours.