Activation

To set up a new Cloudflare account, enter your email address and a password in the provided fields, then log in to your Dashboard.

Cloudflare offers four plans: Free, Pro, Business, and Enterprise. On this screen, select ‘Business.’ You may upgrade your plan from your Dashboard later if desired.

Cloudflare automatically checks for existing DNS records. In your Dashboard, you should see an orange cloud next to your DNS records, which indicates that your web traffic is being successfully proxied through Cloudflare. During the core setup process, you will also have the option to add additional DNS records for your domain.

Need help? Follow our detailed instructions >

To successfully activate your site with Cloudflare, you need to update the nameservers at your domain registrar. This does not change your hosting provider, but simply allows Cloudflare to manage your DNS.

Follow our detailed instructions to determine your registrar, log in to your account, and replace your existing nameservers with Cloudflare’s nameservers. When successful, this change will take effect within 24 hours.

SSL (Secure Socket Layer) is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. This secure link ensures that all data transferred remains private. It’s also called TLS (Transport Layer Security). Millions of websites use SSL encryption everyday to secure connections and keep their customer’s data safe from monitoring and tampering. Cloudflare offers four options: Flexible, Full, Full (strict), and Off (not recommended).

Cloudflare recommendation: Full SSL, which encrypts traffic end-to-end using a self-signed certificate on the server.

Need help? Follow our detailed instructions >

Any website, especially those that require login credentials, should use HTTPS. In modern
web browsers such as Chrome, websites that do not use HTTPS are marked differently than those that are. Look for a green padlock in the URL bar to signify the webpage is secure. Web browsers take HTTPS seriously; Google Chrome and other browsers flag all non-HTTPS websites as not secure. Toggle this feature to redirect all requests with the scheme “http”
to “https.”

Cloudflare recommendation: Turn on HTTPS, which helps prevent data leaks and increases visitor trust.

Need help? Follow our detailed instructions >

Auto Minify helps accelerate your site by removing all unnecessary characters from JavaScript, CSS, and HTML files, reducing whitespace and comments in content provided to visitors.

Cloudflare recommendation: Turn on Auto Minify for all fields, which removes the need for manual size reduction and additional third-party minify applications.

Need help? Follow our detailed instructions >

Brotli compression allows content to reach users more quickly by speeding up page load times for your visitors’ HTTPS traffic.

Cloudflare recommendation: Turn on Brotli, which allows you to compress your site size with the latest compression technology.

Need help? Follow our detailed instructions >