Point your domain at Canvas in four steps
Changing nameservers is the last step of a migration, not the first. Do it in this order and visitors never see a broken page.
Before you change anything
Copy the site to Canvas and confirm it works on the temporary staging URL in your control panel. Load a few real pages, submit a form and check that images resolve. A migration that looks fine on the front page but breaks at checkout is the usual reason a switch has to be rolled back.
Lower the TTL first
Twenty-four hours before the change, drop the TTL on your existing records to 300 seconds at your current DNS provider. Resolvers cache your old records for whatever the TTL says, so a 48-hour TTL means some visitors keep hitting the old host for two days after you have switched.
Copy every record, not just the A record
MX records for mail, TXT records for SPF, DKIM and domain verification, and any CNAME your marketing tools rely on all need to exist on the new nameservers before you delegate. The most common outcome of forgetting is silently broken email.
- A and AAAA records for the site itself
- MX plus the SPF and DKIM TXT records
- CNAMEs for CDN, help desk and status subdomains
- Any TXT record used for domain verification
Delegate, then watch
Change the nameservers at your registrar. Propagation is usually minutes rather than the mythical 48 hours once the TTL is low. Keep the old host running for a week. It costs one more month at most and it is the cheapest insurance you will ever buy.
