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Your project URL and custom domains

Every project has one address on the web. When you connect a domain you own, it joins that address rather than replacing it.

Your project URL

When you create your project, you choose a web address that looks like yourname.spark.site. Everything you publish serves there: your marketing site at the root, and each of your other public apps under its own path. Your internal tools open inside your Spark workspace and never appear on the public address.

Only published work is visible at your project URL. Until you press the Publish button, changes live in the preview — see Preview and publish.

Rename your project URL

Open Project settings › Domain and edit the Project URL field. Spark checks availability as you type; press Save and confirm. Only organization owners and admins can make changes on the Domain page.

Renaming is safe for the apps themselves — they keep working at the new address. Two things do break, and the confirmation asks you to accept both: every link you’ve already shared points at the old address and stops working, and customers who were signed in are signed out, because customer sign-in is tied to your address. If you’re going to rename, do it early. Anything already printed, posted, or bookmarked will need updating.

Connect your own domain

In Project settings › Domain, under Custom domains, type the hostname you want and press Add. The row opens with the setup written as three numbered steps, and everything below happens inside them.

  1. Pick your DNS provider. At the top of the steps there’s a provider picker — GoDaddy, Cloudflare, Namecheap, Squarespace, Hostinger, and Amazon Route 53 are listed. Choose yours and the whole panel adjusts: where records are managed at that provider, each record’s name written the way that provider’s form expects it, and the caveats that only apply there. If yours isn’t listed, keep “Another provider” — those instructions work everywhere.
  2. Add the records. The panel lists the exact DNS records for your hostname, each value with a copy button. Add them at your DNS provider — the company you bought the domain from, or wherever its DNS is hosted. Copy the values straight from the page; they’re specific to your domain.
  3. Wait. There’s nothing to confirm — the row updates on its own. What to expect covers the timing.

The records you’ll add

The shape of your hostname decides what the page asks for:

  • A www-style name (www.yourbusiness.com) needs one CNAME record pointing at Spark.
  • A bare domain (yourbusiness.com, nothing in front) can’t carry a CNAME — DNS forbids that at the root — so your provider has to support ALIAS or ANAME records there. Some providers call this CNAME flattening. A bare domain also needs one extra TXT record; the page lists it with the value filled in.
  • Either way, a TXT record proves you own the domain.

The settings page shows everything your particular hostname needs, ready to copy. Three things trip people up at nearly every provider:

  • The Name field usually wants only the part before your domain — www, not www.yourbusiness.com. Type the full name into a form that adds your domain by itself and you end up with www.yourbusiness.com.yourbusiness.com, which never verifies. Once you pick your provider in the panel, the names are already written the way its form expects.
  • A record with the same name may already exist. New domains often come with placeholder records on www and the root. Change the existing record to Spark’s values rather than adding a second one.
  • TTL doesn’t matter here. Leave it at your provider’s default.

Notes for specific providers

The panel says all of this in place once you pick your provider — this is the same guidance for reading ahead.

  • GoDaddy — GoDaddy’s DNS has no ALIAS record, so a bare domain can’t point at Spark from GoDaddy. Use www.yourbusiness.com as your domain on Spark, and redirect the bare domain to it with GoDaddy’s Forwarding (on the domain’s DNS page). Or move the domain’s DNS to a provider that supports ALIAS records.
  • Cloudflare — set each record that points at Spark to DNS only (the gray cloud). Cloudflare turns its proxy on by default, and a proxied record can’t be verified. Cloudflare does take a CNAME on the bare domain and flattens it automatically.
  • Namecheap — records live under Domain List › Manage › Advanced DNS, and only take effect while the domain uses Namecheap’s own nameservers. A bare domain uses Namecheap’s ALIAS record type.
  • Squarespace — records go under DNS › DNS Settings › Custom records. Delete the records in the Squarespace Defaults section first — the domain keeps pointing at Squarespace while they’re in place. A bare domain uses the ALIAS type, and the DNSSEC toggle (under DNS › DNSSEC) has to be off before Squarespace accepts one.
  • Hostinger — records live under Domains › your domain › DNS / Nameservers. For a bare domain, enter the record as a CNAME on @ — Hostinger stores it as an ALIAS.
  • Amazon Route 53 — records live in Hosted zones (not Registered domains). The record name box takes only the part before your domain, and for the bare domain you leave it empty. The bare domain is an A record with Alias turned on, pointed at the value the panel shows.

What to expect

Spark checks your DNS automatically every few minutes, and the list updates on its own. The domain reads Pending DNS until the records are found, then flips to Active. A domain that doesn’t verify within the verification window expires and reads Failed — remove it and add it again once the records are in place. The window’s length is on the limits page.

HTTPS is automatic. Once your DNS points at Spark, a certificate is provisioned for you, usually within minutes and occasionally after a few hours. There is nothing to buy, upload, or renew.

Your domain and your project URL together

A custom domain is added alongside your project URL. Both keep working, and once the domain is live the settings page names it as the address to share with your customers.

The www and bare versions of a domain are handled as a pair. Add yourbusiness.com and Spark claims www.yourbusiness.com too, and the other way around: one of the pair is the canonical address, and the other redirects to it. Setting up DNS for the second half is optional — its records carry a note saying so — and the Make canonical button flips which one your customers land on.

To move to a different domain, remove the current one from its row and add the new one. A removed domain stops serving your apps right away, so have the new records ready before you switch.