Why This Is Tricky: An Industry-Wide Standard
When you try to point your root domain (e.g., maplecoffee.com) to an external service, you may see a warning or an error. This is not a bug — it is how DNS was designed, and every DNS provider in the world faces this same rule.
Here is the short version: your root domain (@) is required by internet standards to hold essential administrative records. A CNAME record works by saying "ignore everything here and go look somewhere else" — which directly conflicts with that requirement. The result would be a broken domain. So the rule exists to protect you.
In short: CNAME + @ = not allowed by the DNS standard (RFC 1034). This applies everywhere, not just here.
How Some Providers Work Around This
You may have noticed that providers like Cloudflare and AWS Route 53 seem to allow a CNAME at the root. They are not breaking the rules — they are working around them using a clever technique.
Provider | What They Call It | How It Works |
Cloudflare | CNAME Flattening | Automatically resolves the CNAME behind the scenes and serves only the final IP address to visitors |
AWS Route 53 | Alias Record | A proprietary record type that behaves like a CNAME but resolves server-side |
The key idea: these providers do the CNAME lookup themselves, on their own servers, before the answer ever reaches a visitor. The visitor only ever sees a plain IP address — so no rule is broken.
Our DNS currently does not support this feature, which means we need a different approach.
What To Do: Step-by-Step Guide for Our DNS
Since we do not support CNAME Flattening, we use the redirect method — a reliable, widely-used approach that works perfectly for most external services.
What You Will Need
Access to your DNS settings
Your service's CNAME value (e.g.,
x9k2m7pq.hosting-provider.app)Your external service's domain settings panel
Step 1 - Add the www CNAME Record
Add this record in your DNS settings:
Type | Name | Value |
CNAME |
|
|
This points www.maplecoffee.com to your service. Subdomains like www are fully allowed to use CNAME records.
Step 2 - Use domain forwarding (URL forwarding)
Add a redirect record at your root domain:
Type | Name | Value |
REDIRECT (or URL Redirect) |
|
This ensures anyone visiting maplecoffee.com is instantly sent to www.maplecoffee.com, which then reaches your service.
Step 3 — Update Your Service's Custom Domain
In your external service dashboard, set your custom domain to:
www.maplecoffee.com
Not maplecoffee.com. Since the apex now redirects to www, using www as the primary domain in your service panel ensures everything lines up correctly.
Summary
Record | Allowed on Our DNS? | Solution |
| ❌ No (industry standard) | Use redirect instead |
| ✅ Yes | Add normally |
Note: We are currently working on native CNAME Flattening support, which will make this workaround unnecessary in the future. In the meantime, if your service strictly requires a bare @ CNAME, migrating to Cloudflare DNS (free) is the most reliable option for now. Contact our support team and we can guide you through that process.