Would you like to link SendLayer to your domain on HostGator?
SendLayer’s transactional email service provides a streamlined and effective platform for sending emails from your website domain hosted on HostGator.
In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to set up SendLayer with a site that’s hosted on HostGator.
Before getting started, be sure to:
Viewing DNS Records in SendLayer
After you’ve added your domain, SendLayer automatically detects your domain host and creates 5 unique DNS (Domain Name System) records for your domain.
If it doesn’t detect the correct domain host, click choose your domain host and select your domain registrar.
In the overlay that appears, click the Choose your domain host dropdown and select your domain registrar from the available options.
If you don’t find HostGator from the dropdown, we recommend choosing the Other option and using the general DNS settings.
Note: When you add a new domain to your SendLayer account, we’ll create a subdomain for you that starts with ‘sl‘ (e.g. sl.example.com). For additional information, be sure to check out why SendLayer creates a subdomain.
Here are the types of DNS records that SendLayer generates:
The 5 records will each have a TYPE, HOSTNAME, VALUE, and TTL (Time To Live) that correspond to your domain. You’ll need to add each of the 5 DNS records to HostGator’s cPanel, which we’ll go over in the following steps.
Locating DNS Settings in HostGator
To locate your site’s DNS settings, first log in to your HostGator account. We recommend having your SendLayer and HostGator accounts open in different windows or tabs for easy switching between them.
Once you’re logged in to your HostGator account dashboard, click on the Hosting tab in the side menu.
On the next page, you’ll see a list of your websites hosted on HostGator. Click on cPanel for the domain that you’ve added to SendLayer.
Alternatively, you can also click on the Launch cPanel button from your Dashboard to access the HostGator cPanel.
Next, scroll down to the Domains section and click on Zone Editor in your cPanel.
This will take you to the Zone Editor page, where you can view and manage your DNS records.
Note: To see the list of all records associated with your domain, click on the Manage button next to your domain.
Adding DNS Records in HostGator
To add a new DNS record to your domain hosted on HostGator, start by clicking the Manage button. You’ll now see a list of the DNS records associated with your domain.
Next, click the + Add Record button.
In the new section that appears, you’ll see inputs for the Name (hostname), TTL (Time To Live), Type (DNS record type), and Record (value).
For each of the 5 DNS records that SendLayer generates, you’ll need to add the TYPE, HOSTNAME, VALUE, and TTL to the corresponding fields in HostGator cPanel.
As an example, we’ll add the first CNAME record to our HostGator cPanel.
First, head back to your SendLayer account and locate the HOSTNAME. Here, you’ll need to copy the sl subdomain and add it to the Name field in HostGator cPanel.
HostGator will automatically add your domain name to the hostname of the DNS records that you add to your account.
Note: If you’re using the Other domain host option, the CNAME record in SendLayer will have a HOSTNAME of sl.example.com. In HostGator cPanel, we only need to enter the sl subdomain since HostGator will expand this to sl.example.com on its own.
Once you’ve identified the HOSTNAME, switch over to your HostGator cPanel and add the HOSTNAME to the Name field.
Next, click the TTL field and enter 300 seconds, which is equivalent to 5 minutes.
Now, click the Type dropdown and select CNAME from the available options.
Then, navigate back to your SendLayer account and copy the VALUE by clicking on the copy icon.
Next, head back to HostGator cPanel and paste the VALUE into the Record field.
Now that you’ve entered the details for your first DNS record, go ahead and click the Save Record button.
Once you’ve successfully added your first DNS record, be sure to repeat this process with the remaining DNS records that are in your SendLayer account. You should be adding a total of 4 different CNAME records and 1 TXT record.
Note: It can take up to 24-48 hours for DNS changes to propagate.
Checking Your Domain Status
After adding the DNS records to your HostGator account, you can check for successful propagation from your SendLayer account. Note that it may take 24-48 hours for your web hosting account to implement the DNS changes.
To learn how to check if your DNS records have been added successfully, check out our tutorial on checking your domain status.
That’s it! Now you know how to set up SendLayer on HostGator.
Next, would you like to learn how to check that your emails are successfully reaching users’ inboxes? Check out our tutorial on checking email logs for more information.