Resources · Tutorials

How to set up your domain

Your restaurant’s name, in the address bar, with the padlock — bought in two minutes inside Settings, or connected from wherever you already own it. No DNS knowledge needed either way.

Buy a domain in Settings

Open Settings → Domain and find the card called Buy a new domain. Type your restaurant’s name — just the words, no dots needed — and press Search. You get live availability for .co.uk, .uk and .com with the price itemised on the line: the registry’s own cost, the card fees, and a small TableSpark service charge. A .co.uk starts at £6.33 for the year, which is well under what most registrars quote at renewal time.

Press Buy on the ending you want. The registry legally requires the owner’s name and address, so a short form appears — fill it once, and note the line above it: WHOIS privacy is on, so these details stay out of public lookup. Continue to payment takes you to a normal card checkout.

That is the whole job. After payment the domain sets itself up: you can watch the progress dots walk across the card until the badge says Live. It connects to your website and gets HTTPS on its own — there is no record to copy anywhere, no “now log into your registrar” step, nothing to come back and check.

Run it from the Domain dashboard

Once a domain is live, Settings → Domain → Domain dashboard opens its own page — the same controls a technical registrar gives you, laid out so you can actually read them.

The DNS records table is fully yours — add, edit or delete records for anything you connect later (a mail service, a verification, a subdomain). The two records marked SITE are the ones pointing the domain at your website; the page tells you plainly that removing them takes the site offline, so nobody deletes them by accident.

Two more cards finish the job a domain is actually for. Google Search Console walks you through proving ownership to Google: add the domain property in Search Console, paste the verification value it gives you, and press the button — the DNS record is written for you, and your sitemap address is printed ready to submit. And Transfer this domain elsewhere is exactly what it says: your domain is yours, the paid year travels with it, and the page hands you the transfer code (.com) or moves the Nominet tag (.co.uk/.uk) whenever you ask.

Already own a domain? Connect it

If you bought your domain somewhere else — GoDaddy, Namecheap, 123-reg, anywhere — you don’t have to move it. On the same Settings → Domain page, use the card called Use your own web address: type the domain and press Connect.

TableSpark then shows you one DNS record — a CNAME — to add wherever the domain is managed. Log in at your provider, find the DNS settings, paste the name and value exactly as shown, and save. That is the only technical step, and the page keeps checking for you: once the record is seen, the status flips to Live & secure and HTTPS is issued automatically. Your email and anything else on the domain keep working — the record only points the website.

Whichever route you took — bought here or connected from elsewhere — the result is the same: guests type your name and land on your site, with the padlock in the address bar.