CNAME www won't add

[tarq476]

Hello, I am trying to add a CNAME to my DNS.  www would be the host, pointing to @.  When I try to do this, I get this error message:

An unexpected error occurred. If this issue continues, contact support.

I also tried doing this in an incognito browser with no success.  Any tips to get this to work?  Thanks.

[Zulfiqar · Accepted solution]

Hello tarq476, I hope you are well. Thanks for being part of the GoDaddy community. You can add a CNAME (alias) record to your DNS zone file for a domain registered with GoDaddy. CNAME records use a domain prefix, such as blog.coolexample.com to point to another domain name, or URL. To add a subdomain that points to an IP address, you can add a subdomain. If your domain is not registered with GoDaddy, you can add a CNAME using DNS hosting.

You can watch a short animation of this task farther down the page.

• Go to your GoDaddy product page.
• Click Manage All next to Domains.
• Select your domain name from the list to access the Domain Settings page.
• Scroll down to the Additional Settings section and select Manage DNS.
  
• On the DNS Management page, at the bottom of the Records section, click Add.
• Select CNAME from the Type dropdown.
• Complete the required fields:

Field name What to enter

Host	The host name, or prefix, the CNAME record will be set to.  You can include a period (.) but not as the first or last character. Consecutive periods (...) are not allowed. The host cannot exceed 25 characters or be the @ symbol.
Points to	The URL you are setting as the destination for the host. Type @ to point directly to your root domain name.
TTL	How long the server should cache information

Note: The most common CNAME host is www, with the @ symbol entered for the Points to field. This will make www.coolexample.com load to the same webpage as the root domain, coolexample.com.

• Click Save to complete the process.

[Zulfiqar · Accepted solution]

Hello tarq476, I hope you are well. Thanks for being part of the GoDaddy community. You can add a CNAME (alias) record to your DNS zone file for a domain registered with GoDaddy. CNAME records use a domain prefix, such as blog.coolexample.com to point to another domain name, or URL. To add a subdomain that points to an IP address, you can add a subdomain. If your domain is not registered with GoDaddy, you can add a CNAME using DNS hosting.

You can watch a short animation of this task farther down the page.

• Go to your GoDaddy product page.
• Click Manage All next to Domains.
• Select your domain name from the list to access the Domain Settings page.
• Scroll down to the Additional Settings section and select Manage DNS.
  
• On the DNS Management page, at the bottom of the Records section, click Add.
• Select CNAME from the Type dropdown.
• Complete the required fields:

Field name What to enter

Host	The host name, or prefix, the CNAME record will be set to.  You can include a period (.) but not as the first or last character. Consecutive periods (...) are not allowed. The host cannot exceed 25 characters or be the @ symbol.
Points to	The URL you are setting as the destination for the host. Type @ to point directly to your root domain name.
TTL	How long the server should cache information

Note: The most common CNAME host is www, with the @ symbol entered for the Points to field. This will make www.coolexample.com load to the same webpage as the root domain, coolexample.com.

• Click Save to complete the process.

[tarq476]

Thank you, but when I do exactly as you suggest in your instructions, I get this error:

"An unexpected error occurred. If this issue continues, contact support."

I am simply adding a CNAME, the host is www and it's pointing to @.  Any ideas how to defeat this error message?

[KristyW · Accepted solution]

Hi @tarq476! Thanks for posting and being a part of the GoDaddy Community!

It sounds to me like you might already have an existing record using "www" on your domain. If you do, you will want to remove the existing record and then add a new one. Should you encounter any further issues, feel free to reply here with your domain so we can take a look at what the issue might be.