Domains

A designed site appears on the domains you add to its space. Until the first domain exists, the site is not public.

Adding and removing domains needs the permission Manage domains, which owners and admins have.

Add a domain

1. Click Settings in the sidebar, then API hosts. The site’s domains are listed below the API hosts, under Site domains.
2. Click Add domain.
3. In Host name, type the domain without https://, for example www.example.com.
4. Leave Language on Every language, or pick one language if this domain should show only that language (see below).
5. Click Save.

For a try-out on your own computer, add localhost and open http://localhost:3200.

Your domain must also point at your server, which is set up where you bought it (its DNS settings). See Put the designed site online below.

Some installations ask for proof that a domain is yours. Then a new domain carries the badge not verified and shows a DNS record to add where you bought the domain, usually a TXT record. Add it and click Verify now, or wait: Manablox checks again on its own for a week. The site answers on the domain once the record is found. DNS changes can take from minutes to a day to reach everyone.

A developer can do the same from the project folder with pnpm exec manablox website domains add, list, verify and remove; see The manablox command.

The primary domain

The first domain you add becomes the primary domain. Links, the sitemap and the address search engines remember use it. When a site has several domains, for example example.com and www.example.com:

• Tick Primary domain on the one you want people to see.
• On the others, tick Redirect to the primary domain. Visitors who type them are forwarded to the primary one, and search engines learn which address is the real one.

A domain that is neither primary nor redirecting shows the site too, but tells search engines the primary domain is the original.

One domain per language

In a multilingual space you can give each language its own domain, like example.com for English and example.de for German:

1. Under Settings > General, section 404 page and languages, set Languages in addresses to Domain per language.
2. Add a domain for each language and pick that language under Language.

A domain with a language shows only that language, without a language prefix in its addresses.

To forward old addresses of the site to new pages, see Redirects.

Put the designed site online

In a docker project made with manablox create, the site process is the site service. With Caddy (the default), every domain that is not your admin or public API domain goes to it, and Caddy fetches an HTTPS certificate the moment someone first visits a new domain. It asks the site process first, so it only ever gets certificates for domains you added in the admin.

To go live with a designed site:

1. Add the domain in the admin (see Add a domain).
2. Point the domain at your server in its DNS settings, where you bought it: an A record to the server’s IP address, or a CNAME to its host name.
3. In .env, set SITE_URL to one of the site’s addresses, for example SITE_URL=https://www.example.com. The admin uses it to show the design canvas.
4. Run docker compose up -d so the change is picked up.

The first visit to a new domain can take a few seconds while the certificate is issued. See Domains and HTTPS for how certificates work.

With nginx, the site domains are served over plain HTTP until you add a server block with their certificates. Without a proxy (--proxy none), the site process is published on SITE_PORT (3200) for your own web server to forward the domains to.