Remove apex domain

I have used code backticks around some of the content of this post to try to avoid the restriction to include ‘only include 6 links’. I don’t want them to be links.

My Netlify site is

I own the domain robwakeman.com
The registrar is TSOHOST
The DNS is managed at TSOHOST

TSOHOST has made a CNAME for www and pointed it to confident-tesla-41316e.netlify.com

TSOHOST has also made a redirect from robwakeman.com to www.robwakeman.com from the cPanel

In Netlify, in Domain Management, my custom domains are:

confident-tesla-41316e.netlify.com
Default subdomain

www.robwakeman.com
Primary domain

robwakeman.com
Redirects automatically to primary domain

Initially, I added the custom domain robwakeman.com
But then I realised that I should have instead added www.robwakeman.com which is recommended by Netlify

I subsequently added the custom domain www.robwakeman.com because this subdomain points via a CNAME record at TSOHOST to confident-tesla-41316e.netlify.com

QUESTION 1
Do I need to remove robwakeman.com (the apex domain)? Or is ok to just leave it there? It seems effectively redundant.

If so, I can see there is an option to ‘Remove domain’ for www.robwakeman.com but there is no equivalent option to ‘Remove domain’ for robwakeman.com

Or would it somehow ‘break’ the system if I removed robwakeman.com?

QUESTION 2
Also, why does it show ‘Check DNS configuration’ with a warning icon next to robwakeman.com?

When I click this, I am prompted to set my nameservers to
dns1.p05.nsone.net
dns2.p05.nsone.net
dns3.p05.nsone.net
dns4.p05.nsone.net

I don’t want to do that - I want to continue managing the domain with TSOHOST. So, should I just ignore this ‘Check DNS configuration’ warning?

QUESTION 3
www.robwakeman.com has a green Netlify DNS button next to it which goes to the DNS Settings page
https://app.netlify.com/teams/robwakeman/dns/robwakeman.com

I’m not sure why as I haven’t knowingly chosen to use Netlify DNS. Or does that just mean it’s giving me the option to use Netlify DNS?

The documentation for your setup is here:

Basically, you set up your DNS on TSOHOST so that there as an A record pointing at the Netlify IP for the bare domain (usually @), and a CNAME record pointing at your Netlify domain for the www subdomain.

You don’t need to remove anything, you just need to confirm that each of these two records is properly configured.

Netlify must have DNS routing internally so that requests to your custom domain go to your files. If you click on this green button, you should see only the default internal routing settings (which you can neither change nor delete) for IP4 and – if specified – IP6.

This does not mean that your public DNS settings have been changed from TSOHOST to Netlify.

Re question 3, internal DNS routing - ah, I see. Thanks for explaining that.

Re question 1, thanks for explaining that I don’t need to remove anything (referring to domain robwakeman.com).

I didn’t think adding the A record for the bare domain was necessary as TSOHOST (registrar) has made a redirect from robwakeman.com to www.robwakeman.com from the cPanel, i.e. it happens at their end.

With this redirect, do I definitely still need to add the A record to point to the Netlify IP 104.198.14.52 ?

Could it somehow conflict with the TSOHOST redirect? Or would one simply take precedence? Is there some kind of performance benefit to pointing it to the Netlify IP instead of having the TSOHOST redirect? If so, I can remove the TSOHOST redirect and point the A record to the Netlify IP.

Re question 2, do you recommend I just ignore the ‘Check DNS configuration’ warning (even though it’s slightly disconcerting seeing it as a warning)?

Netlify recommends either CNAME for those external DNS services that do it a certain way, or with the A record and the CNAME record for others. If you want to do it the way TSOHOST recommends, you’re on your own.

No, I recommend trying it the way Netlify suggests, seeing as how their system knows what it’s looking for. Right now, it appears that your HTTP URL does not automatically redirect to the HTTPS version. If that doesn’t bother you, then don’t worry about it, but know that it is fixable.

After DNS propagation, I had tested the following in Firefox:
robwakeman.com
www.robwakeman.com
http://www.robwakeman.com
http://robwakeman.com
and they all resolved to:

so I thought everything was ok, but there must have been some caching going on, because now after clearing browser cache, I can see that, as you say, the bare domain does NOT resolve correctly to the site on Netlify.

So, thank you for your advice - I will get TSOHOST to undo their redirect and ask them to add the A record to point to the Netlify IP 104.198.14.52.

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