Domains page explanations

Your store always has an address. On day one it is the free yourstore.sohojdokan.com subdomain, and later it is usually a domain of your own like myshop.com. Both live on the same page, and this guide explains every part of it: what each row means, what each badge is telling you, and what actually happens behind the scenes when you connect or buy a domain.

Where to find it

Open Advanced in the sidebar, then Domain Management. Everything about your addresses is on this one page:

1. Two buttons at the top: Buy new domain and Connect existing domain
2. Your domain list, with the free subdomain always first
3. Domain contact & documents, the WHOIS details used when you register a domain
4. Order history for your registrations and renewals
5. A Need help connecting? section with DNS records and provider guides

The three kinds of address

Before the buttons make sense, it helps to know that a domain can reach your store in three different ways.

Kind	Where it comes from	What you have to do
Free subdomain	Created with your store, permanent	Nothing, it works from the start
Domain you own	Bought anywhere else (GoDaddy, Namecheap, a local reseller)	Add it here, then point its DNS at us
Domain bought through us	Bought inside Sohoj Dokan	Nothing, it connects itself once paid

That last row is the reason most merchants buy through us: there is no DNS step at all. If you already own a domain, the DNS step is unavoidable, but it is only two records and it is a one-time job.

Reading the domain list

Every address you have appears as one row. The badges on a row tell you its state at a glance:

Badge	Meaning
Primary	This is the canonical address. Everything else redirects here
Connected (green)	Verified and serving your store
Verifying… (amber)	Added, but we cannot see your DNS pointing at us yet
Action needed (red)	Verification did not succeed within the time window
Not connected	Registered through us but not yet attached to your store

Under each row is a one-line caption in plain language. On a connected domain it shows the date it went live. On a domain that is still verifying it tells you exactly what is wrong, for example that the domain is not registered yet, or that its DNS is not pointing at us.

Every row also has a ⋯ actions menu on the right. What appears inside it depends on the row’s state, so a domain that is already connected will not offer you a “Verify now” option, and only a verified domain can be made primary.

The free subdomain

The first row is always yourstore.sohojdokan.com, and you cannot delete it. Your store stays reachable there for as long as the store exists, which is useful as a fallback while you are still setting up a custom domain.

Its actions menu has two options:

Set as primary returns your canonical address to the subdomain. Your custom domains stay connected, they simply stop being the main address.

Change subdomain renames it, for example from demo-store.sohojdokan.com to rahim-fashion.sohojdokan.com. Three things are worth knowing before you do it:

• Your old address permanently redirects to the new one, so links you have already shared, printed QR codes and old Facebook posts keep working.
• Search engines need some time to re-index the new address.
• You can change your subdomain only once every 30 days, so pick carefully.

Connecting a domain you already own

Click Connect existing domain, type the domain, and press Add & Verify.

Type only the name itself, such as mystore.com or www.mystore.com. Do not include http://, https:// or anything after the domain. A .sohojdokan.com address cannot be used here, since that is your subdomain rather than a custom domain.

The domain is added straight away with the amber Verifying… badge, and its DNS panel opens automatically. Nothing is live yet, and your store keeps running on its current address throughout. Nothing breaks while a domain is verifying.

The DNS records

The panel shows exactly two records to add at whichever company you bought the domain from. Every value has a copy button beside it, so there is no need to retype anything.

Type	Name / Host	Value / Points to
A	@	The IP address shown on your page
CNAME	www	Your yourstore.sohojdokan.com subdomain

The A record is what makes mystore.com reach us. The CNAME record does the same for www.mystore.com, which matters because plenty of customers still type the www themselves. An alternate IP is listed underneath if your provider lets you add a second A record for redundancy.

Below the records, the Need help connecting? section at the bottom of the page has click-by-click guides for Namecheap, GoDaddy, Cloudflare, Hostinger and ExonHost, plus a link that checks your DNS from outside so you can see what the rest of the world sees.

Note: If your domain sits behind Cloudflare, turn the orange proxy cloud off (grey cloud, DNS only) for both records, or set the SSL mode to Full rather than Full strict. With the proxy on and strict SSL, verification cannot complete and your padlock will not work.

How verification actually works

This is the part that confuses people most, so here is the honest version.

We do not just look at your DNS records. We ask your domain directly. Your store publishes a secret token at a fixed address, and we fetch http(s)://yourdomain.com/.well-known/sohojdokan-domain-verify and compare what comes back. If the token matches, traffic to your domain really is reaching your store, which is a much stronger check than DNS alone. DNS can look perfect while nothing actually loads.

What that means in practice:

• Verification runs automatically in the background roughly every 15 minutes. You do not need to sit on the page.
• Verify now in the actions menu forces an immediate check. It is rate limited to about once every ten seconds, so a message asking you to wait a moment is normal, not an error.
• When it succeeds, the row turns green, and we send you a push notification and an email if you have those enabled.
• If a domain cannot be verified within 7 days, it flips to Action needed and we let you know. Nothing is deleted. Fix your DNS, click Verify now, and the clock starts over.
• SSL (the padlock) is issued automatically once your domain points to us. There is no certificate to buy, upload or renew.

What the error captions mean

What the row says	What is actually wrong	What to do
This domain isn’t registered yet	The name does not exist in global DNS at all	Buy the domain first, from us or any registrar
DNS isn’t pointing to us yet	The domain resolves, but not to our servers	Re-check the A and CNAME values, and Cloudflare’s proxy setting
Waiting for DNS to propagate	Records look plausible but we cannot reach the site yet	Wait. We keep retrying by ourselves

DNS changes take anywhere from 5 minutes to 48 hours to spread across the internet, though most are working within one or two hours. If you added the records correctly, the honest answer is usually to leave it alone until tomorrow.

Choosing your primary domain

You can connect several domains to one store, and one of them is the primary: the canonical address that shoppers actually see in the browser bar. Every other domain, and your free subdomain, redirects to it.

• The first custom domain you verify becomes primary automatically.
• To change it later, open a domain’s ⋯ menu and choose Set as primary. Only a Connected domain can be made primary, since promoting an unverified one would take your store offline.
• The change is instant. There is nothing to save.

Having one primary address matters more than it looks. Search engines treat mystore.com and www.mystore.com and yourstore.sohojdokan.com as three different sites unless one of them is clearly the canonical one, which splits your ranking three ways. A primary domain merges all of that into a single address.

Buying a domain through us

Click Buy new domain and search. You can type a bare name like rahimfashion to see it across up to eight extensions, or a full domain like rahimfashion.com to check just that one.

Each result shows whether it is available and the price in BDT per year, with the renewal price underneath so there are no surprises in year two. Payment goes through PayStation, the same gateway used for your subscription, so bKash, Nagad, cards and bank transfer all work.

The real advantage is what happens after payment: the domain is registered and attached to your store automatically. No DNS records, no waiting, no verification. If it is your first custom domain, it also becomes primary on its own.

If your plan includes a free domain

Qualifying plans include one domain free for the first year. When a credit is available, a green Free domain credit banner appears at the top of the page, and eligible search results show a FREE badge instead of a price.

Clicking Buy on a free-eligible domain asks you to confirm first, because the credit is one per store and can only be spent once. You can also choose to pay normally and save the credit for a different name. Free-credit registrations skip the payment page entirely.

A few honest limits: the credit covers one year and one domain, only the extensions listed in your plan, and premium-priced names are excluded. The renewal in year two is charged at the normal price.

Bangladeshi .bd and .com.bd domains

These are regulated, so they work differently from a .com in two ways:

• Identity documents are required before you can buy. Search results for these extensions carry a Documents required badge.
• They do not activate instantly. After payment the domain reads Under review while our team completes the registration with the registry, then it connects to your store.

Add your documents before you start the purchase and the whole thing is much smoother.

Domain contact & documents

Every domain in the world is registered to a person or a business. This card holds those details, known as the WHOIS contact, and they are used for every domain you buy through us.

The required fields are your full name, email, phone, address and city. Organization, state, postal code and country are optional. If you leave the card empty and try to buy, you will be asked to fill it in first, so it is worth doing once in advance.

For .bd and .com.bd you also need:

• A National ID number, digits only, between 10 and 17 of them.
• Identity documents, which may include a National ID, Trade License, Authorization Letter or Incorporation Certificate. The page marks each one as required or optional for the extension you are buying.
• Files must be JPG, PNG, WebP or PDF and each under 8MB.

The card shows On file once your details are saved, or Not added yet if they are missing. Anything you enter here also fills in your store’s own contact fields if those were empty, so you are not typing the same thing twice.

Renewals and auto-renew

Domains registered through us appear in the list with their renewal date, and each one has two controls:

Auto-renew is a switch. Left on, the domain renews itself and you never have to think about it. This is the safe default. A lapsed domain can be bought by someone else, and getting it back is expensive or impossible.

Renew is a button for renewing manually at any time, which extends the expiry date rather than resetting it, so renewing early never costs you days.

We also send SMS reminders as the date approaches, at roughly 30, 14, 7 and 1 days before expiry, and only during daytime hours so nothing arrives at midnight.

Order history

Every registration and renewal is listed here with its type, number of years, amount, payment status and date. It is the receipt trail for anything you have paid us for a domain.

Two details worth knowing:

• If a payment did not complete, the order stays with a Pay now button so you can finish it without searching again.
• An order that stays unpaid for about 30 minutes is cancelled automatically. Nothing is charged, and the domain is not reserved, so search for it again if you still want it.

You may also see a registration status on your domains. Registered means everything is done. Under review means we are completing it by hand, which is normal for .bd. Needs attention means something went wrong and we are already looking into it; if it cannot be resolved, your payment is refunded.

Removing a domain

Choose Remove from a domain’s actions menu. Your store simply stops being served at that address, and you can connect the same domain again later.

What happens next depends on which domain you removed:

• Removing a non-primary domain changes nothing else.
• Removing the primary domain promotes your next-oldest connected domain to primary. If there is no other one, your free subdomain becomes primary again.

Either way your store stays online. Removing a domain here does not cancel a registration you bought through us, and the domain stays in your list as Not connected, ready to be attached again with one click.

Limits and rules at a glance

Rule	Value
Custom domains per store	Up to 10
Subdomain changes	Once every 30 days
Verification window	7 days, restarted by Verify now
Automatic verification checks	About every 15 minutes
DNS propagation	5 minutes to 48 hours, usually 1 to 2 hours
Unpaid domain orders	Cancelled after about 30 minutes
Renewal reminders	30, 14, 7 and 1 days before expiry
Free domain credit	One per store, one year, on qualifying plans

Common problems

What you see	Why it happens
Stuck on Verifying… for hours	DNS has not propagated yet, or the records point somewhere else. Check the values, then wait
Verified, but the padlock is missing	Cloudflare’s proxy is on with strict SSL. Grey-cloud both records or switch SSL to Full
mystore.com works, www.mystore.com does not	The CNAME record for www is missing
Set as primary is greyed out	That domain is not verified yet. Only a Connected domain can be primary
Buying is blocked with a message about contact details	Your WHOIS contact, NID or documents are incomplete. Fill in the contact card first
A .bd domain has been Under review for a while	Normal. Regulated extensions are registered by hand and are not instant
Cannot add another domain	You have reached the 10 domain limit. Remove one you no longer use

In the mobile app

The merchant app has the same feature under More → Domains. You can see your domain list, buy a new domain, connect one you already own, and fill in your WHOIS contact and documents. The DNS records are shown there too, with copy buttons, so you can set a domain up from your phone.

Tips

• Connect your domain early, even before your store is finished. Verification and DNS propagation take time you would rather spend before launch than during it.
• Buying through us skips the entire DNS step. If DNS makes you nervous, that alone is worth it.
• Add both records, @ and www. Half your customers will type the www version.
• Fill in the contact card once, before you go looking for a domain, so nothing interrupts the purchase.
• Leave auto-renew on. The cost of a renewal is trivial next to the cost of losing your address.
• After a domain goes live, update your Facebook page, printed materials and Google Business listing to the new address so everything points at one place.

What’s next

New to this? Start with connect a custom domain or buy a domain. To run several addresses on one store, see manage multiple domains. To claim the domain included with your plan, see free domain with your plan.