Point a domain at an external web service
Send your website to Wix, Squarespace or similar while keeping your email on WebGee — the change that breaks mail if you get it wrong.
Point your domain's website at an external service — Wix, Squarespace, Shopify, Webflow — while keeping email on WebGee. Applies to any domain using WebGee's nameservers.
Changing the wrong record takes your email down along with the website. Mail
is controlled by MX records and the mail hostname; the website is
controlled by the A record for the domain. Change only the second.
Before you begin
Get the target values from the external service — usually either an IP address
for an A record, or a hostname for a CNAME. Use exactly what they specify.
Point the website
- In cPanel, open Zone Editor under Domains.
- Select Manage beside your domain.
- Find the
Arecord whose name is the domain itself, with nothing in front of it. - Edit it to the IP address the external service gave you.
- Repeat for the
wwwrecord — usually aCNAMEto the same target.
Leave everything else alone. In particular do not touch:
MXrecords — inbound mail- The
mailArecord — your mail server TXTrecords — SPF, DKIM, DMARC and verifications
Some services want a CNAME on the apex
A few require a CNAME for the bare domain, which conflicts with the MX
records that must also exist there. Where a service offers both, take the A
record option — it avoids the conflict entirely.
After the change
Your domain no longer resolves to WebGee for web traffic, so webmail and cPanel must be reached by server hostname rather than by domain:
| Instead of | Use |
|---|---|
example.com/cpanel | The server hostname from your welcome email |
example.com/webmail | webmail.webgee.com |
Mail clients configured with mail.example.com continue to work, because that
record is unchanged. If you set any client up using the bare domain, point it at
mail.webgee.com — see
Email server settings.
Check it worked
dig +short example.com # should return the external service
dig +short MX example.com # should still return WebGeeBoth must be true. The second is the one people forget to check, and the failure is silent — mail simply stops arriving.
Allow up to a few hours for propagation.