Your domain is on your menus, your vans and years of links. Using a custom domain for website visitors should mean bringing it along step by step, with your old site running until you are ready.
A custom domain for website visitors already know
Your web address is on the side of the building, on years of party invitations and on every link other sites have sent your way. Moving to new software should not mean giving that up, and it should not mean a dark Saturday while someone argues with DNS.
Moving a custom domain for website traffic is mostly about order: prove you own the domain, get it ready on the new host, build the site, then switch when you say so. VenueChief runs it in that order. Your old site keeps running until the last step.
Start on a free address
A new VenueChief site gets a free address such as yourname.venuechief.com, ready within a minute of signup. It comes with its security certificate, and it stays your site’s reachable address even after you connect your own domain.
Your original address, such as venuechief.com/yourvenue, is never removed. Old links and QR codes keep working.
Book a demo and we will show you each step before anything changes.
Build the site before you move anything
If you have a website today, Setup can read it. Build my site runs the import, then shows your new site with View your site, Preview on phone and Undo the import. What the old site sells arrives as switched-off drafts, so nothing goes on sale until you check it. Your next steps lists what is left to check, each with its own button. Fix any page in place: press Edit on your website, change it or ask in your own words, and visitors see nothing until you press Publish.
Take your time here. Visitors to your domain are still seeing the old site. Results vary by site, so plan on reviewing every page.
Connect a domain you own, step by step
An Administrator opens Venue Settings, Web Addresses and picks what the domain is for: My whole website, Just booking (book.yourvenue.com, while your existing site stays where it is), or another address. Type the domain, and the screen shows where its DNS records are managed and warns you if a website already answers there.
- Add two TXT records. These prove the domain is yours and change nothing for visitors. Each record shows Found, Different value or Not found yet, and VenueChief checks every few minutes. Check now does it on demand.
- Wait for the nightly update. Once the records are found, your domain goes on our web server in a nightly window at 5:00 AM Eastern. It waits if a heat is on track at that time.
- Switch when you get our email. We tell you when the domain is ready. You then change one record, a CNAME for www or an A record for a domain without it, to send visitors to VenueChief.
Within minutes of that change we request a free certificate and email you when the address is live. If you do not manage your domain yourself, Send to whoever manages your domain puts the records in an email to forward, and Copy instructions gives you the whole list.
Pick a quiet moment for the switch. For those few minutes, some visitors may see a security warning.
Keep every old link alive
Once the domain is live, use Make primary. Your other addresses keep working and send visitors there, with the same page. Everyone signed in signs in again once. Screens and kiosks are not affected.
An imported page whose address changed forwards from its old address with a permanent 301 redirect, and each one shows in Page Manager, Redirects. Those forwards answer on your domain after the switch.
The Redirects tab keeps working after the move. Rename a page and the old address forwards automatically, unless you untick it. A list called “Visitors asked for these and found nothing” shows addresses people hit that returned nothing, with a likely page and a one-click redirect. Each redirect says whether it works and how often visitors used it, and you can test any address. A health card points out redirects that loop or chain, and fixes the chains in one click.
Who it suits
Venues switching from an old site that still earns bookings, new venues that want a real address on day one, and venues that want to keep their marketing site and put only booking on book.yourvenue.com.
What it changes on the day
- Nothing goes dark while you build.
- The person who manages your domain gets exact records, not a phone call.
- A broken old link becomes a line on a list you can fix.
Availability and fine print
Only Administrators see Web Addresses. A site can connect a limited number of domains, and the screen says when you reach the limit.
Once your domain is on our server, we wait up to 30 days for you to make the switch. After that, change the record and press Check now. Lower the record’s TTL before switching an existing website. On Cloudflare, set the record to DNS only until the address is live.
If a live domain stops pointing at VenueChief, it is marked Needs attention and we email you. If it was primary, your site falls back to your VenueChief address until the records are fixed.
Undo on an import removes the forwards it made, except any edited since. A redirect can also be a pattern, with * for one part of an address, and can match an old address’s query, such as /?p=123. Patterns use wildcards, not regular expressions. We cannot promise search rankings. See pricing for what your plan includes.