Connect your own domain

Every site starts on a free rantevo.com address, which works perfectly well. Your own domain is about how the link looks when you hand it to somebody.

You do this on rantevo.com: sign in and open Domain. It's there once your site has launched, and your booking site's admin links to it too, under Rantevo in the side menu.

Buying a domain through Rantevo

Search for the name you want. Each result shows what the first year costs and what every year after that costs, in euros, before you commit. The prices are live, not estimates, so they're what you pay.

Pay once, and Rantevo registers the domain and sets its DNS up for you. There's nothing to configure at a registrar and no records to copy. The domain is transfer-locked, which stops anyone moving it away without your say-so.

When it's ready, your site moves to it. Your old address keeps working and sends visitors on to the new one.

While it's registering

It usually takes a minute or two after you pay, and the Domain page updates by itself until it's done. Your current address keeps working the whole time, so nothing is down.

Both the plain domain and the www version are set up, so either works.
If it still hasn't finished after a day, that's unusual. Open a request from Support and we'll look at it.

Connecting a domain you already own

Type it under Connect one you own. Rantevo then shows the records to add where you manage the domain's DNS, usually at the company you bought it from, with each value ready to copy:

For a whole domain, like yourbusiness.com: an A record, and a CNAME for www.
For a subdomain, like book.yourbusiness.com: one CNAME, so a website you already have on the main domain stays where it is.
Either way, a TXT record named _rantevo. Its value is unique to you, so copy it exactly: it's how we know the domain is yours and not somebody else's.

If the domain is also set up with another website host, a second TXT record, named _vercel, appears too.

The page checks for the records every time you open it. A change at a DNS provider can take up to 48 hours to show up, and a TXT record you've just added can take up to an hour. Once everything is in place and the domain's security certificate is issued, which usually takes a few minutes, your site moves to it. Until then, your current address keeps working.

If your site is already on a domain of your own, a newly connected one is added beside it rather than taking over. Move your site to it whenever you like (below).

A domain you connected stays yours, and you keep renewing it where you bought it. Nothing about renewals below applies to it.

Moving your site to another address

Every other address that works is listed under Other addresses, with Move your site here. The address you leave keeps working and sends visitors on to the new one, and within a minute every visitor reaches the new address. Anyone signed in on the old address, your team included, will have to sign in again.

Removing a domain

The address your site is on can't be removed: move your site to another address first. The free rantevo.com address always stays.

A domain you connected: once it's removed, delete its records where you manage its DNS, so it stops pointing at us.
A domain bought through Rantevo: we stop renewing it from that moment. It stays registered until its paid-through date, and after that anyone can register it. Until then, ask us and we'll unlock it and give you the authorisation code to move it to your own registrar.

Renewals

Domains don't renew silently in the background. About a month before yours expires, Rantevo re-quotes the current price, charges the card on your account, and only renews with the registrar once that payment has cleared.

If the payment fails you'll be emailed, and there are a couple of weeks of retries before anything is at risk. Nothing is auto-renewed at the registrar, so a failed payment means we don't charge you and don't renew.

Keep the card on your account current and there's nothing to do.

If a domain bought through Rantevo reaches its paid-through date without being renewed, it expires, and after that anyone can register it. If your site was on it, the site moves back to its free rantevo.com address within a day, and we email you when it has. If you want the domain back, reply to that email as soon as you can: for a while after a domain expires it can sometimes still be renewed, and we'll tell you whether yours can.

If you cancel your subscription

We stop renewing a domain bought through Rantevo from the moment you cancel. It stays registered until its paid-through date. We show you that date before you confirm, and email it to you too.

To keep it renewed, resubscribe at least a week before that date.
To take it with you, ask us for its authorisation code any time before that date, even after your account has closed.

If you don't need the domain any more, there's nothing to do: when it expires, your site moves back to its free rantevo.com address if it's still on it. A domain you connected yourself isn't affected.