Troubleshooting

Domain not verifying

Custom domain stuck on Pending or Validating? Here's what to check.

If a custom domain hasn’t reached the Active status after 30 minutes, something in DNS is off. Work down this list.

1. Confirm the records match what PageFork shows

Open Domain settings and compare the records PageFork lists with what’s actually in your DNS. The most common mistakes:

  • Wrong target host. CNAMEs must point at sites.pagefork.ai exactly. Anything else fails validation.
  • Wrong record type. Using a CNAME where you need an A record (the apex-redirect case) or vice versa. See DNS records reference.
  • Wrong host name. E.g. adding records on www when you only connected launch.
  • Missing second record. For the www + apex case without flattening, you need both the www CNAME and the apex A record. Either alone won’t validate.

2. Check for proxies

If you use Cloudflare (or another CDN in front of your DNS), the proxy toggle must be off — the grey cloud, not the orange cloud. See Cloudflare and proxies.

3. Check DNS propagation

From a terminal:

dig www.yourbrand.com +short
dig yourbrand.com +short

Expected, per case:

  • Subdomain / www CNAME: sites.pagefork.ai. followed by PageFork-owned IPs.
  • Apex with ALIAS / flattened CNAME: PageFork-owned IPs (flattening hides the sites.pagefork.ai line).
  • Apex with redirect A record (Case D): the redirect-service IP shown in the PageFork UI. Nothing else.

If instead you see:

  • Empty result — records not saved, or TTL still expiring on your resolver. Wait 5–10 minutes.
  • A Cloudflare / Fastly / other proxy IP — proxy is still enabled.
  • A different IP — wrong record value. Update it.
  • Old hosting provider’s IP — stale A record at apex. Delete it before PageFork’s records can take over.

4. “Domain already connected”

You’ll see this error when adding a domain that’s already attached to a different PageFork site.

  1. Find the other site (All Sites → search).
  2. Open its Domain settings.
  3. Remove the domain there.
  4. Go back to the new site and add it again. See Changing or removing a domain.

5. Wrong apex configuration

If you’re trying to connect an apex (yourbrand.com with no www) and your registrar doesn’t support ALIAS / CNAME flattening, there’s no apex-only path — PageFork uses the www + redirect pattern instead. When adding the domain, enter www.yourbrand.com and choose Include apex; then add both the www CNAME and the apex A record from the domain sheet.

If your registrar supports flattening and you used the one-record path, make sure the apex record is genuinely an ALIAS or flattened CNAME and not a regular A record.

See Apex vs www.

6. TTL is too high

If you previously had a record with a 24h TTL, your resolver may still be caching it. Options:

  • Wait it out.
  • Flush your local DNS cache (sudo dscacheutil -flushcache on macOS).
  • Test from a different network / DNS resolver (e.g. switch to 1.1.1.1).

7. It’s been an hour, still Pending

Click Refresh status one more time. If it’s still Pending, contact support with:

  • The domain.
  • A screenshot of your DNS records.
  • The output of dig on both the apex and www.

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