Connecting a third-party subdomain to Shopify

A subdomain is a subset of your root domain that you add as a prefix to your root domain. If you want to use your root domain for another website, and a subdomain for your Shopify store, then you can connect the subdomain from your third-party provider account.

When you purchase a domain, you buy a root domain, such as johns-apparel.com. You can also have subdomains such as www.johns-apparel.com or shop.johns-apparel.com, where johns-apparel.com is the root domain, and www or shop is the subdomain. You have to purchase a root domain before you can add a subdomain.

Note

If you need help with connecting your domain to your Shopify store, then contact your third-party provider’s support team. Shopify Support can't log in to your third-party domain account for you, even if you give your explicit permission.

Step 1: Change your CNAME record on your third-party domain provider's account

In this procedure, you change the value of the host or alias to that of your subdomain. Depending on your third-party provider, how you enter your subdomain might change. For example, if your subdomain starts with www, then you might have to enter www, or www. with a dot (.) at the end. Use the existing entry as a guide, or follow your provider's instructions.

You don't need to assign your subdomain an A record for Shopify even if you're using it as your primary domain.

Before you begin

To complete this procedure, you need to have the following information:

• your login information for your third-party domain provider account
• your subdomain
• the CNAME record for your subdomain shops.myshopify.com

Steps:

1. On your domain provider’s website, log in to your account.
2. Find the DNS settings or domain management area.
3. Do the following:
   1. In the Host or Alias field, enter the subdomain that you want to connect to your Shopify store.
   2. In the Type or Record Type field, enter CNAME.
   3. Point the CNAME record for your subdomain to shops.myshopify.com.
4. Save your changes.

Step 2: Verify that your subdomain is connected to Shopify

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Domains.

2. To confirm that your subdomain is connected to your Shopify store, click Verify connection.

It might take up to 48 hours for your domain to be verified. After it's verified, your domain is listed in the THIRD-PARTY DOMAINS section of the Domains page with the status Connected.

Next steps

After you connect your subdomain to Shopify, you can make it the primary domain.