Why connecting one domain wires both the apex and www

When you connect example.com (apex) to a Turtini site, the platform also wires www.example.com to the same site — and vice versa. This isn't a default-pages thing; it's a deeper DNS thing that prevents one of the most common "site is broken" calls from new customers.

What happens behind the scenes:

When you click Connect for example.com in Builder → Domains, Turtini's Cloudflare integration:

1. Creates a CNAME record at example.com pointing to `hosted.turtini.com` (DNS-only, not proxied).
2. Creates the matching CNAME record at www.example.com pointing to the same target.
3. Writes a `website_domains` mapping doc for each, so the Turtini app routes both hostnames to your site.
4. Asks Google Search Console to verify ownership of both hostnames so Cloud Run can issue managed SSL certificates.

A few minutes later the certificates provision and both URLs go live.

Why both halves matter:

Visitors who type example.com (no www) and visitors who type www.example.com both expect to land on your site. Without companion wiring:

- One half works and the other returns Cloudflare Error 1014 ("CNAME Cross-User Banned") because the SaaS routing layer can't find a binding for the missing half.
- Your SEO suffers when search engines see two domains that should be canonical but only one of them resolves.
- Email links, business cards, voicemail — anywhere your URL is spoken or written without the "www" — broken until you manually fix the second record.

When the auto-companion does NOT fire:

If you connect a deeper subdomain like `blog.example.com` or `store.example.com`, the platform does NOT auto-wire the apex or any related hostname. The assumption is that deeper subdomains might be intentionally isolated (a blog on Turtini, the apex on Squarespace, the store on Shopify). You can connect those other halves manually if you want them, but the platform won't surprise you by changing DNS you didn't ask it to touch.

When you connect a domain managed elsewhere (not Cloudflare):

The auto-companion is implemented through Cloudflare's API. If your DNS is at GoDaddy, Namecheap, Route53, or anywhere else, the platform tells you to add a single CNAME pointing at `hosted.turtini.com` and you do it twice (once for the apex form, once for the www form) — there's no API to do it for you.

If you'd like Cloudflare to manage your DNS so the auto-companion can work, the Builder → Domains tab includes a one-click "Add Cloudflare" flow that walks you through transferring DNS to Cloudflare (your registrar stays whoever it was — domain registration and DNS hosting are separate services).

What if you see Error 1014 anyway:

That means the apex (or www) has a stale DNS record left over from a previous host. Open Cloudflare DNS → delete the record at the affected hostname → in Builder, click Connect again. The platform creates the correct record this time.