Official comment
This is a really great question and a little bit complicated. First, it depends on which sort of site you're trying to host. Is it WordPress or Landing Pages?
For Landing Pages, ONTRAPORT offers a lot of free domains including secure options. You'll save a lot of money and hassle if you host your Order Forms on our secure domains with your brand's subdomain instead of buying your own. Your options are:
Regular:
Secure:
safecheckout.info
checkoutnow.info
For WordPress, you can host your WP site on affcntr.com. This is the included ONTRAPORT domain. You can include your subdomain for branding.
Your other option with Landing Pages is to buy your own domain from GoDaddy, Bluehost, or a plethora of other hosting companies. Buying a domain is relatively cheap!
The following is true for both WordPress and Landing Pages:
If you have no content on that site, you're set. If you have content already hosted on that domain, use option 3.
1: Point your Nameservers toward's ONTRAPORT. Ns1.ontraport.com and Ns2.ontraport.com. You'll only be able to host OP content on your domain but this is relatively easy to accomplish!
2: Alter your primary A Record so that it points to ONTRAPORT's IP address. This provides a little more flexibility than the Nameservers.
3: Set up a Wildcard A Record (do this if you have content on your site!) This is the most flexible option and you will retain full control over your other web pages, emails, etc. You can choose this option if you would like to use WordPress for your site in conjunction with OP's Landing Pages. This also allows for you to set up PURLs or Personalized URLs on your domain.
So this is the quick breakdown:
- Do you have existing content on your site? Choose option 3 and set up a Wildcard A Record.
- Do you want access to personalized email (e.g. support@yoursite.com)? Choose options 1-3 and contact support@ontraport.com or postmaster@ontraport.com.
- Do you want to not have to pay any additional money for hosting? Host on ONTRAPORT's domains.
In summary, you can either host on our domains or on your own. Hosting on your own domain gives you more flexibility when it comes to branding, setting up PURLs, setting up email addresses, etc. However, hosting on ONTRAPORT's domains costs you no extra money, is easy, and provides you with secure domains.
Resources: