How to Connect Your Third Party Domain to Shopify Manually?

Shopify is one of the largest cloud-based platforms for businesses to run online stores. According to store leads, in the second quarter of 2025, there were around 2.5 million (2,558,349) active stores on the platform.

To make a store on Shopify, a business requires a domain name that can be bought from the platform or connected from outside. Many businesses have already registered their desired domain names with other providers, which they want to connect with Shopify to run their online store. If you are among them, then this blog post is for you.

This post will walk you through the steps to manually connect a third-party domain to your Shopify account. But first, let’s talk a bit about automatic connection.

Connecting a Domain to Shopify Automatically

Some domain name registrars (e.g., GoDaddy, Google Domains, etc) allow you to connect a domain to a Shopify account automatically. However, for this, you must have access to both a Shopify account and your third-party domain account.

To connect your domain, automatically follow the steps shared below.

1. Log in to your Shopify account and go to the Admin area. Under Admin, navigate to “Settings” and then “Domain”.
2. Next, click on the option “Connect Existing Domain”. Upon doing this, a box will appear; enter your domain name inside this box and click Next.
3. Once you submit the domain name to Shopify, it’ll ask you to choose an option to connect. You have to select “Automatic” and enter the email address on which the domain is registered (if asked for).

Once you have implemented the above steps, log in to your third-party domain account. There, you will see a notification regarding the Shopify domain connection request. You just have to click on “Connect” and close. Some registrars might also ask you for email verification to connect your domain with Shopify, so respond accordingly.

Once you submit the connection request, wait up to 48 hours. This is the standard time registrars must verify the connection with your Shopify account.

Why Connect Third Party Domain Manually?

If Shopify allows third-party domains to be connected automatically, then why is there a need for manual connection? This might be the question coming to your mind right now. Well, here’s the simple answer to that.

Not all third-party domain registrars can perform the automatic connection with Shopify, especially if you have registered a domain name with a local registrar. In such cases, you must manually connect your domain to Shopify by performing specific actions.

Steps to Manually Connect a Third-Party Shopify Domain

Connecting a third-party domain to a Shopify account is simple and involves two steps:

1. Change of the domain’s DNS records
2. Submitting a connection request in Shopify

Let’s closely examine how you can implement both of them.

1. Change DNS Records

Log in to your third-party domain account and look for DNS settings. They often lie under domain management or settings. Once you find the domain name setting, delete the following existing records:

• “A”
• Hostname
• “AAAA”
• CNAME

Once deleted, you must update all these records with those that align with Shopify. This includes pointing your domain’s “A” record to Shopify’s IPv4 address (23.227.38.65).

Next, change the hostname to “@” and point the “AAAA” record to the IPv6 address (2620:0127:f00f:5::). Lastly, point the “CNAME” record of your domain to (shops.myshopify.com) using the name (www).

Note: For “CNAME” record, do not remove the period from the end; it’s a must.

Once all the records are updated, click Save and move on to the next step.

2. Submit Connection Request in Shopify

Once you have pointed your third-party domain records to Shopify, next you have to follow the steps as follows:

1. Log in to your Shopify account and navigate to Admin > Settings > Domain.
2. Click “Connect Existing Domain” and enter your domain name in the field.
3. Lastly, click on “Connect Domain”.

That’s it. These steps are required to manually connect a third-party domain to Shopify. But know that it will not work instantly. The DNS records that you have to change will not propagate instantly. They usually take up to 48 hours to propagate to global servers. So, after performing the above steps, you must wait unless the records are propagated.

In the meantime, you can check whether your records are propagated using the DNS Checker tool. To check, you must enter the domain name in the field, choose the record you changed, and click the search button.

Once you see the updated records in the results field, log in to your Shopify account and start working on your online store.

Bottom Line

Connecting a third-party domain to Shopify manually is not a hectic thing to do. You can easily connect yours by following the simple steps shared in this blog post above. If you face any trouble, consider getting help from your domain registrar. If you have a nontechnical background, let our Shopify Migration and Development Service handle things for you.