DNS can be tricky and stressful. 😰 While we don’t require CloudFlare for DNS, we do highly recommend it for your clients. Here’s why:
It’s free
Our Valerian hosting service has CloudFlare Enterprise built in! For DNS, have your clients sign up for a free CloudFlare account and point their domain registrar to the CloudFlare nameservers. This allows us to take advantage of the other features that CloudFlare DNS provides without the client needing to pay for another service.
With this setup, you clients get enterprise features baked into their hosting! That’s a win/win!
It provides collaboration access
Not every domain registrar allows for collaborator access. Without this ability, emergency DNS changes and troubleshooting can be tricky; attaining a 2-factor authentication code that is going to you or your client slows things down at a time when speed really matters.
CloudFlare’s collaborator access is the biggest reason we recommend it for DNS. Your clients can sign up for a free account and then invite your agency account. This lets us easily access their DNS and they can continue to own and pay for their domain registration via whichever registrar they choose.
Another perk we really appreciate is collaborator notes. With CloudFlare, you can add notes to DNS records, which makes it so much easier to identify records and who they belong to.
It propagates much faster
If you’ve ever waited for HOURS for Network Solutions to propagate your DNS changes for a new site launch, then you understand why we love CloudFlare’s propagation speed so much. 🚀 In our experience, CloudFlare DNS records propagate almost instantly, so making changes or adjustments is a much smoother and less time-consuming experience for all involved.
It can make redirects and add-on domain redirects much easier
A very common support request from clients is for another domain (or an old domain) to point to their primary domain. CloudFlare allows us to support a variety of redirection scenarios, something that most domain registrars or DNS providers can’t do or require an attached hosting account. Not only does CloudFlare make this easier, it also doesn’t require the client to spend money on hosting for a domain that they don’t use.
Coming Soon! We’re working on a website guide for your clients. We’ve outlined the steps for them to set up a free CloudFlare account and add us as a user.