Adding TXT Records for Domain Verification

Increasingly, as more sites and hosts use WP Cloud hosting (WordPress.com, Pressable, Bluehost, etc.), moving between WP Cloud hosts can cause a domain registration conflict.

If another WP Cloud host or site has previously registered a domain, the new site will not be able to connect that domain to the site. This will typically appear as a failure to provision an SSL cert, but if you try to load that domain, instead of getting an ‘insecure’ message in the browser, you will get a ‘domain not found’ error and the site will not load. To correct this, you will need to remove the domain from the other host/site, or you need to add a TXT domain verification DNS entry with a string tied to that site.

For robustness, we are adding the TXT domain verification DNS entry to all sites we launch moving forward.

A good overview reference is available here: ███████████████

Steps for Pressable and WordPress.com:

When launching on a Pressable site:

Pressable’s documentation is available here; below are a summary of the steps most often needed.

If the site is using Pressable’s Name Servers, the steps below are unnecessary, they will happen automatically when you add the domain.

1. Navigate on Pressable to the site you’re launching, and add the domain under domains.
2. Click the “Actions” drop-down for the domain that won’t connect and select “Manage Records.”
3. Scroll down to the TXT records at the bottom and find the corresponding (either root or www domain) entry and copy the string that starts with “atomic-domain-“
4. Go to where the DNS is being managed, and add a record:
   • Type: TXT
   • Host: @
   • Value: [the string you copied starting with ‘atomic-domain-‘]

When launching on a WordPress.com site:

WordPress.com defaults to issuing the SSL far more than Pressable as long as the domain has been removed from any other sites before adding it WordPress.com, but this step should still be taken to ensure robustness of the configuration. ███████████████

WordPress.com does not automatically add the TXT domain verification record, even if the domain has been transferred to WordPress.com.

1. Go to the ███████████████ for the site you’re launching.
2. Scroll down to the “Jetpack Site Info” section.
3. Put the domain in the textbox under “Domain Verification Record” (it should be put in without ‘https://’) 
   • Note: With how WordPress.com handles the www record (e.g., ‘www.example.com’), do not generate or add a TXT record for www, just the root domain. If another site still registers a claim on the www domain (has that www domain added on the site) it will need to be removed from all other sites before adding it to WordPress.com.
4. When you hit Submit, it will generate the string you need, starting with ‘atomic-domain-‘; copy that string.
   • Type: TXT
   • Host: @
   • Value: [the string you copied starting with ‘atomic-domain-‘]