Sotion
Pages & Publishing

Publishing & Custom Domain

Your site is live at its Sotion address, such as acme.sotion.site, and you can serve it on your own domain instead. On the Publishing page of your site dashboard (under Pages & Publishing) you publish your changes, change your Sotion address or the Notion page your site shows, and connect a custom domain.

Publish your changes

Changes you make in the dashboard, such as Branding, Login Page, Code, Settings, Access Control and page URLs, save as you make them and reach visitors when you publish. Edits to your Notion pages need no publishing: visitors see them within about five minutes.

Click Publish Changes at the top of any page of your site dashboard. Visitors see the changes within five minutes. The Publish card on the Publishing page lists which areas have changes waiting, such as Branding or Pages.

Owners and Members of your team can publish; Viewers can't.

Change your Sotion address

Every site has a Sotion address on every plan. Only account owners can change it.

  1. Under Sotion Site, click Change next to Sotion Address.

  2. Enter the new name: 3 to 63 lowercase letters, numbers or hyphens, starting and ending with a letter or number.

  3. Click Save, then Change Address.

Your old address stops working at once, so links and bookmarks to it break. Links to your custom domain keep working.

Change the Notion page

Point your site at a different Notion page when you rebuild your content elsewhere. Only account owners can change it, and it can't be undone: the new page's titles, navigation and URLs replace the old ones, and your access rules are cleared, so set them again in Access Control. Your branding, code, members and domain stay as they are.

  1. In Notion, open the new page and use Share → Publish to web, then copy its link.

  2. Under Sotion Site, click Change next to the Notion page.

  3. Paste the link, click Save, then Change Notion Page.

Connect a custom domain

You can connect a custom domain on every plan. Only account owners can connect one, and you need access to your domain's DNS settings at your domain provider. Each site takes one domain.

Decide which address your site should have:

  • A subdomain, such as portal.example.com: your site is at that address, and example.com stays with your main website.

  • Your root domain, example.com or www.example.com: your site is at www.example.com, and visitors who type example.com are sent there.

Then:

  1. On the Publishing page, under Custom Domain, enter the domain in Domain Name, without https://.

  2. At your domain provider, add the records shown under Required DNS Records. Click a value to copy it.

  3. Click Connect Domain.

The status shows Verifying while we check your records, usually for up to 30 minutes; DNS changes can take up to 48 hours to reach us. The page updates by itself. When it shows Connected, your site is on your domain, and your Sotion address sends visitors to the same page on it.

We set up HTTPS for your domain; there's nothing to buy or install. On the Basic plan your site shows the "Made with Sotion" badge on your custom domain too. On Starter and higher plans a connected custom domain never shows it.

The DNS records

Type

Name

Value

What it does

CNAME

the part before your domain, such as portal or www

connect.sotion.site

Sends visitors to your site

CNAME

_acme-challenge. followed by the same part, such as _acme-challenge.portal

the value shown, ending in dcv.cloudflare.com

Lets us issue and renew your HTTPS certificate

A

@

37.16.16.138

Root domain only: sends example.com to www.example.com

In Name, enter only the part shown, such as portal, not portal.example.com. Most providers add your domain themselves, and the full name ends up as portal.example.com.example.com.

For a root domain, delete any other A or AAAA record for @, such as your provider's parking or forwarding record. While it stays, some visitors who type example.com land on the old destination instead of your site.

Domain statuses

  • Verifying: we haven't found your records yet. If we still can't find them after seven days, the status changes to Disconnected.

  • Connected: your site is live on your domain.

  • Disconnected: your domain doesn't point to us, or stopped pointing to us. Your site stays live at its Sotion address. Check the records with your domain provider, then click Reconnect domain. When a connected domain stops pointing to us, we email the account owner.

  • Blocked: we blocked this domain for safety reasons. Write to us if you think that's a mistake.

Disconnect your domain

Disconnect a domain to move it to another site or stop using it with Sotion. Only account owners can disconnect one.

  1. Under Custom Domain, click Disconnect.

  2. Click Disconnect Domain.

Your site moves back to its Sotion address within a minute. If you use the domain elsewhere, delete its records at your domain provider.

Troubleshooting

"This domain is already connected to your site …"

Each domain serves one site. Disconnect it on the site named in the message, then connect it here.

"This domain is already connected to another Sotion site"

Another account has connected it. If you own the domain, write to us.

My domain stays on Verifying

Check that each record's Name holds only the part shown, such as portal, and that no other record uses the same name. Then give DNS up to 48 hours.

Visitors who type my root domain land somewhere else

Your domain has another A or AAAA record for @ next to ours. Delete it at your domain provider.

Search engines

The Assets card links your sitemap (/sitemap.xml) and robots file (/robots.txt) on your live address, your custom domain once it's connected. To leave protected pages out of the sitemap, use Exclude Protected Pages from Sitemap in your site settings.

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