# Setting up your hosting account Welcome to DesignThat Cloud! You're almost ready to set up your websites and web applications. Before you do all that, please follow the suggestions in this article to make sure that your site's performance meets your expectations. Please note that some of these are merely suggestions that we believe will make your hosting experience better. We have partnered with Cloudflare [https://www.cloudflare.com/?utm_source=DesignThat%20Cloud&utm_medium=Link&utm_campaign=Hosting%20Setup] to make sure that our clients have the best domain, security, and performance possible for their websites. Follow the steps below on how you can set up your account and add your domain to Cloudflare. If you find this to be a bit hard for you to follow, you can open a support ticket to have our hosting team set this up for you by clicking on the button below. Create a Cloudflare account [https://designthat.cloud/gs1f] To create a new Cloudflare account: 1. Go to the Sign-up page [https://dash.cloudflare.com/sign-up]. 2. Enter your Email and Password. 3. Click Create Account. Once you create your account, Cloudflare will automatically send an email to your address to verify that email address [https://developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/account-and-billing/account-setup/verify-email-address/]. https://developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/account-and-billing/account-setup/create-account/#best-practicesBEST PRACTICES If you are creating an account for your team or a business, we recommend choosing an email alias or distribution list for your Email, such as cloudflare@example.com. This email address is the main point of contact for your Cloudflare billing, usage notifications, and account recovery. Choosing a payment plan Cloudflare [https://www.cloudflare.com/?utm_source=DesignThat%20Cloud&utm_medium=Link&utm_campaign=Hosting%20Setup] offers multiple payment plans [https://www.cloudflare.com/en-gb/plans/?utm_source=DesignThat%20Cloud&utm_medium=Link&utm_campaign=Hosting%20Setup#overview] that you can choose when signing up. In this article, we are going to use the free plan which you can choose to scale up should you require more features. Add site to Cloudflare When you add a site to Cloudflare, you need to create a new domain within Cloudflare and then perform additional steps to activate that domain. These instructions are tailored to customers using a full setup for Cloudflare DNS (the most common configuration). If you are using a partial setup [https://developers.cloudflare.com/dns/zone-setups/partial-setup/] or secondary setup [https://developers.cloudflare.com/dns/zone-setups/zone-transfers/], your setup process will be different. https://developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/get-started/setup/add-site/#prerequisitesPREREQUISITES To use Cloudflare, you need to own a domain (example.com). https://developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/get-started/setup/add-site/#step-1--add-site-in-cloudflareSTEP 1 — ADD SITE IN CLOUDFLARE 1. Log in to the Cloudflare dashboard [https://dash.cloudflare.com/login]. 2. In the top navigation bar, click Add site. 3. Enter your website’s root domain (example.com) and then click Add Site. 4. Select your plan level (Free). 5. Cloudflare will then automatically scan for your DNS records. 1. Since this scan is not guaranteed to find all existing DNS records, you need to review your records, paying special attention to the following record types: * Root domain records (example.com) * Subdomain records (www.example.com or blog.example.com) * Email records. If you activate your domain on Cloudflare without setting up the correct DNS records for your domain and subdomain, your visitors may experience DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN [https://developers.cloudflare.com/dns/zone-setups/troubleshooting/dns-probe-finished-nxdomain/] errors. 2. If you find any missing records, manually add [https://developers.cloudflare.com/dns/manage-dns-records/how-to/create-dns-records/] those records. 3. Depending on your site setup, you may want to adjust the proxy status [https://developers.cloudflare.com/dns/manage-dns-records/reference/proxied-dns-records/] for certain A, AAAA, or CNAME records. 4. Click Continue. 6. Click Done, check nameservers. 7. Go through the Quick Start Guide, which allows you to: * Improve security: Make sure that your site enforces HTTPS connections using Always Use HTTPS and Automatic HTTPS Rewrites. For more help, refer to our detailed guide [https://developers.cloudflare.com/ssl/edge-certificates/encrypt-visitor-traffic/]. * Optimize performance: Speed up your site by enabling Auto Minify [https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/200168196] and Brotli compression [https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/200168396]. 8. When you have finished the Quick Start Guide, click Finish. https://developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/get-started/setup/add-site/#step-2--update-nameserversSTEP 2 — UPDATE NAMESERVERS Before your domain can begin using Cloudflare for DNS resolution, you need to update your nameservers from your DesignThat Cloud domain manager. If your domain is particularly sensitive to downtime, review our suggestions to minimize downtime [https://developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/get-started/setup/minimize-downtime/]. Once you have added a domain (also known as a zone) to Cloudflare, that domain will receive two assigned authoritative nameservers. https://developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/get-started/setup/add-site/#get-nameserver-namesGET NAMESERVER NAMES 1. Log in to the Cloudflare dashboard [https://dash.cloudflare.com/] and select your account and domain. 2. On Overview, copy the information from Replace with Cloudflare’s nameservers. Cloudflare automatically assigns nameservers to a domain and these assignments cannot be changed. For more details, refer to Nameserver assignments [https://developers.cloudflare.com/dns/zone-setups/reference/nameserver-assignment/]. https://developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/get-started/setup/add-site/#update-your-registrarUPDATE YOUR REGISTRAR 1. Log in to the DesignThat Cloud account for your domain. If you do not know your provider or registered your domain from another registrar, use ICANN WHOIS [https://whois.icann.org/]. 2. Disable DNSSEC for your domain. 3. Remove your existing authoritative nameservers. 4. Create new authoritative nameservers. If their names are not copied exactly [https://developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/get-started/setup/add-site/#get-nameserver-names], your DNS will not resolve correctly. Provider-specific instructions 5. Wait 24 hours while your registrar updates your nameservers. You will receive an email when your site is active on Cloudflare. https://developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/get-started/setup/add-site/#verify-changesVERIFY CHANGES To check whether you correctly changed your nameservers, you can log in to the Cloudflare dashboard [https://dash.cloudflare.com/] or use a third-party tool [https://www.whatsmydns.net/]. If you see unexpected results, open a support ticket [https://i.dthat.work/y02VD]. How does Cloudflare work? Cloudflare protects and accelerates any website online. Once your website is a part of the Cloudflare community, its web traffic is routed through their intelligent global network. They automatically optimize the delivery of your web pages so your visitors get the fastest page load times and best performance. They also block threats and limit abusive bots and crawlers from wasting your bandwidth and server resources. Can I use Cloudflare for free? Yes, you can use Cloudflare for free. Cloudflare's Free plan provides the most basic website performance and security features. If you need more, you can always upgrade to a higher-tier plan. Where can I learn more about using Cloudflare? The easiest way to learn how to use Cloudflare is to sign-up, which takes less than 5 minutes [https://dash.cloudflare.com/sign-up].