To experience the benefits of Cloudflare, first create a Cloudflare account and add a domain to Cloudflare. When you create a new Cloudflare account, adding an initial domain is included in the workflow.

Create a Cloudflare account

1. Visit Cloudflare https://dash.cloudflare.com/sign-up to sign-up.
2. Enter your Email address and Password.
3. Click Create Account. Use an email alias or distribution list. For example, [email protected]. So, billing and service-relate email notifications are sent to this email address.
4. The Cloudflare UI will asks you to add a site to Cloudflare.

Add a domain to Cloudflare

If you add a new domain while in the workflow of creating a new account,  skip to step 3 below.

1. Log in to your Cloudflare account.
2. Click on Add site from the top navigation bar.
3. Enter your website’s root domain and then click Add Site. For example, if your website is www.example.com, type example.com.
4. Cloudflare attempts to automatically identify your DNS records. This process takes approximately 60 seconds to complete.
5. Click Next.
6. Select a plan level and click Confirm plan.
7. Click Confirm in the Confirm Plan window that appears.
8. Review whether all DNS records were identify in the DNS query results window.
   • Manually add missing DNS records.
   • Decide which subdomains enable Cloudflare security and performance features  or bypass Cloudflare .

Some records, like MX, cannot proxy through Cloudflare and don’t display a Cloud icon.

9. Click Continue.
10. Copy the 2 Cloudflare nameservers displayed and Click Continue.
11. To finish domain setup and activate your domain on Cloudflare, change your domain nameservers to Cloudflare.